EAC: Overseas and Military voters disenfranchised at higher rates than other voters

Some preliminary hard numbers received from the Election Assistance Commission’s (EAC) new study on UOCAVA voting in the 2010 election. 



  • Of the 211,749 UOCAVA ballots submitted for counting, States reported counting 197,390 (93%). The same percentage of UOCAVA ballots were counted in 2008.

Unfortunately, the 7% of individuals who had their ballots discarded is significantly higher than other comparable methods of voting.  Modifications to the MOVE Act may be necessary to reduce that rejection rate to comparable percentages for regular absentee ballot rates for non-UOCAVA voters.  It will be interesting to dig into the data and determine if the number of UOCAVA ballots used by the EAC in this analysis includes absent military voters in the Continental United States.  While absent military voters in the U.S. are defined as UOCAVA voters, they may not have the same challenges as overseas and military voters in remote locations. The UOCAVA voters in the U.S. would presumably have an increased rate of return and their inclusion in the numbers would skew the numbers upward.   From the report:    



  • States reported rejecting 14,824 ballots. The most common reason for rejecting a UOCAVA ballot was that the ballot was not received on time. Thirty-two percent of the ballots were not counted for this reason.

The large numbers of people directly disenfranchised by postal service limitations is very unfortunate.  The primary rejection cause for UOCAVA ballots is simply not enough time being provided for the ballot to make the lengthy and slow transit to an overseas location and back.  This failure rate more than justifies the MOVE Act’s 45 day requirement for mailing ballots and requires strict DOJ enforcement of this hard deadline.  The fact that time and distance is still the overwhelming obstacle to voting for UOCAVA voters argues for consideration of other methods and technologies that would shorten the transmittal process of the ballot.  The one issue that will take longer to glean from the data is the total participation rate of UOCAVA voters in the voting process.  More to follow.