After the storm of controversy last fall over the waiver it received, Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed is asking the Legislature to move Washington’s Primary Election two weeks earlier, to early August, to ensure that Washington complies with a new federal law requiring military ballots to be mailed 45 days before Election Day. 

Reed said Washington needs to move the state’s Primary Election to the first Tuesday in August to comply with the Military & Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act, passed by Congress in 2009. The Primary date must be earlier because the MOVE Act requires military and overseas ballots to be mailed 45 days before November’s Election Day instead of Washington’s current law of 30 days before Election Day.

“Last year, our state was able to receive a waiver from the Department of Defense and Department of Justice that allowed us to mail our military-voter ballots when we would normally, but federal officials made it clear that we shouldn’t count on getting that waiver in the future, so we need to move up the Primary to follow the MOVE Act,” Reed said.   

In 2010, Reed asked legislators to allow military and overseas voters to return ballots by fax or e-mail rather than by slower surface mail. That measure was unanimously passed by the House before failing to be brought to the Senate floor for a vote.

“Military and overseas voters have repeatedly asked for the ability to scan and return their ballots by e-mail,” said Reed, noting that 20 other states use this approach and that it’s working well for them. “When you’re a soldier stationed in the hills of Afghanistan or on a ship in the middle of the ocean, you don’t have much time to mail back your ballot, so this bill provides a modern, practical solution that allows military voters to return their ballots in a timely way.”