At RNLA Blogs: 

Today we celebrate Veterans Day, which was first proclaimed in 1954 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.   Yesterday was the 236th birthday of the United States Marine Corps.  Tuesday was Election Day.   This week, it’s important to ask: “How have we treated our military voters?”  The answer is not something to be happy about. According to the Federal Voting Assistance Program, over 112,000 military voters never received their absentee ballot this year. 

U.S. Navy Commander Eric Eversole, an RNLA member and JAG officer who served on active duty from 1999 until 2001, spoke in Houston on Monday about the horrible way agencies have been treating military voters.  Eversole worked as an attorney in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, and is now executive director of the Military Voter Protection Project.  His dedication to protecting military voting rights started when he first served as a unit voting assistance officer. 

In the 2010 elections, 14 states, including New York, Maryland and Illinois, failed to meet the deadline to have absentee ballots to military voters at least 45 days ahead of time.  Eversole noted, “The one provision that was supposed to increase was not implemented by Department of Defense until two weeks after the 2010 election and is still not implemented.”

Eversole called military voting a “second class issue” of the Department of Justice and criticized the Department of Defense for not implementing military voting rights laws consistently.   Unfortunately, Obama has not made military voting a priority for his administration, and thus his agencies do not follow through either.

President Obama issued a
proclamation for Veterans Day “[w]ith respect for and in recognition of the
contributions our service members have made.” 
What better way to show our respect and recognition than by making
protecting the rights of military voters a priority?