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68–160 2011

[H.A.S.C. No. 112–52] 

MILITARY VOTING 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON MILITARY PERSONNEL 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

JULY 15, 2011 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON MILITARY PERSONNEL 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina, Chairman 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

TOM ROONEY, Florida 

JOE HECK, Nevada 

ALLEN B. WEST, Florida 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

DAVE LOEBSACK, Iowa 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine 

JEANETTE JAMES, Professional Staff Member 

DEBRA WADA, Professional Staff Member 

JAMES WEISS, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2011 

Page 

HEARING: 

Friday, July 15, 2011, Military Voting .................................................................. 1 

APPENDIX: 

Friday, July 15, 2011 ............................................................................................... 27 

FRIDAY, JULY 15, 2011 

MILITARY VOTING 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Davis, Hon. Susan A., a Representative from California, Ranking Member, 

Subcommittee on Military Personnel ................................................................. 2 

Wilson, Hon. Joe, a Representative from South Carolina, Chairman, Subcommittee on Military Personnel ........................................................................ 1 

WITNESSES 

Carey, Robert H., Director, Federal Voting Assistance Program, Defense 

Human Resources Activity .................................................................................. 4 

Crepes, Dean, Director, Lexington County Commission of Registration and 

Elections ................................................................................................................ 7 

Jackson–Gillespie, CPT Angel, USA, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne, Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, U.S. Army ....................................................... 6 

Seiler, Deborah, San Diego County Registrar, Registrar of Voters ..................... 9 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Carey, Robert H. ............................................................................................... 35 

Crepes, Dean ..................................................................................................... 47 

Davis, Hon. Susan A. ....................................................................................... 33 

Seiler, Deborah ................................................................................................. 54 

Wilson, Hon. Joe ............................................................................................... 31 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

‘‘Military Voting in 2010: A Step Forward, But a Long Way To Go,’’ 

by Eric Eversole ............................................................................................ 69 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

Mr. Coffman ...................................................................................................... 89 

Mr. West ............................................................................................................ 89 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted post hearing.] 

(1) 

MILITARY VOTING 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON MILITARY PERSONNEL, Washington, DC, Friday, July 15, 2011. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:35 p.m. in room 

2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Joe Wilson (chairman 

of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOE WILSON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE 

ON MILITARY PERSONNEL 

Mr. WILSON. Ladies and gentleman, good afternoon. I would like 

to welcome everyone to a Military Personnel Subcommittee hearing 

on military voting. 

Today the subcommittee meets to hear the testimony on military 

and overseas voting from the Department of Defense, local election 

officials, and a military officer who was a voting assistance officer 

while deployed to Afghanistan during the 2010 election. 

Our witnesses have traveled a long distance to help us understand how members of the Armed Forces and their families, along 

with the U.S. civilians living and working outside of the United 

States, are afforded the opportunity to exercise their right to vote. 

I want to welcome our witnesses, and I look forward to their testimony. 

Voting is a fundamental and essential part of the democratic 

process. It is both our right and our duty as citizens of a democracy 

to set the direction of the Nation by selecting the individuals who 

will represent us at each level of government. This responsibility 

remains with us regardless of where we choose to live and work or, 

as in the case of our service members, where they are sent to defend freedom. 

For many years Congress has been concerned about military and 

overseas voters, who have told us about the difficulties they face 

when they try to cast their ballots. Registering to vote, receiving 

a ballot by mail, and returning the ballot by mail in time for the 

vote to count in an election when the voter is not physically located 

in the U.S. is challenging at best. 

One can only imagine the difficulty trying to accomplish the 

same process when the voter is at a remote outpost in Afghanistan 

fighting a war. Yet, these are the very individuals who through 

their military service protect our right to vote. 

Congress has worked hard over the last several years to ensure 

that the men and women assigned overseas on behalf of our country do not lose their ability to vote as a result of their service. A 
2 

number of Federal laws have been enacted to enable the military 

and U.S. citizens abroad to vote in Federal elections. 

Most recently, Congress enacted the Military and Overseas Voter 

Empowerment—‘‘MOVE’’—Act as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2010. The MOVE Act required the Department 

of Defense to make several changes to the Federal Voting Assistance Program to improve the process by which military absentee 

voters cast their ballots. 

I look forward to hearing from our DOD [Department of Defense] 

witnesses how these improvements have been implemented within 

the Department. I am also interested to know how the changes to 

FVAP [Federal Voting Assistance Program] affected the military 

and overseas voter in the 2010 election. Were more military and 

overseas voters able to cast their ballots in time for them to be 

counted in the election? 

In addition, a successful military voting assistance program depends on the collaborative efforts of the Department of Defense 

with the military voting assistance officers in the field and State 

and local officials. I am very pleased we have two local elected officials with us today. 

First, we have from my home State, but more importantly to me 

home own county, I am very honored that we have the registrar 

and director of elections of Lexington County, South Carolina. And 

additionally, from San Diego, California, we have the registrar 

from the home of the ranking member, Susan Davis. 

We also have with us today a voting assistance officer who had 

to find a way to get deployed soldiers the election information they 

needed. I look forward to hearing their perspectives on how to best 

assist military and overseas voters cast an absentee ballot. 

I will close by saying that every day our troops lay their lives on 

the line to defend freedom, and it is our job to make sure they are 

not denied the right to vote. 

Before I introduce our panel, let me offer Congresswoman Susan 

Davis of California an opportunity to make her opening remarks. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wilson can be found in the Appendix on page 31.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. SUSAN A. DAVIS, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM CALIFORNIA, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

MILITARY PERSONNEL 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I believe it is so important that we are having this hearing today. 

We all know that voting is an important responsibility as an American citizen. It is fundamental to the continued success of our 

democratic society. 

Over the past several years Congress has taken significant steps 

to improve the voting process for Americans, and specifically for 

our military personnel and their families. The National Defense 

Authorization Act for fiscal year 2010 included the Military and 

Overseas Voter Empowerment Act, which sought to further enhance the voting experience for military service members. 

And these included—and my colleague has enumerated some of 

them; if I may, I wanted to just broaden that a little even in the 

time that we have—included the requirement for States to send out 
3 

requested ballots at least 45 days before an election, allows voter 

registration applications and absentee ballot applications to be sent 

by mail or electronically. 

It expands the use of Federal write-in ballots to include primaries, run-offs, and special elections. It prohibits States from rejecting otherwise valid voter registration applications on the basis 

of notarization requirements or restrictions on paper or envelope 

type. 

And it required the development of online portals of information 

and also required the service secretaries to designate offices on 

military installations to provide information on voter registration 

procedures and absentee ballot procedures, information, and assistance to military personnel. 

I am very interested in hearing from Mr. Carey, the director of 

the Federal Voting Assistance Program, on how these changes have 

been implemented by the States and the Department of Defense 

and what issues were found during the last election. 

I am also very pleased that we have Captain Angel Jackson-Gillespie here from the 101st Airborne, who was a voting assistance 

officer while deployed in Afghanistan. 

I certainly hope that you will share with us, with the subcommittee your experiences and areas or issues of concern or success that you think will help us as we continue to improve the voting process for service members, their families, and Americans living and working abroad. 

We have two individuals who are directly involved in the process 

on the ground level. Mr. Dean Crepes, director of Lexington County 

Commission of Registration, South Carolina, of course, and Mrs. 

Deborah Seiler, registrar of voters from San Diego, California. 

I want to welcome you both and thank you for coming so far, particularly from San Diego, on such short notice. 

I invited Deborah to be here today not just because she is in my 

district, but because she runs a first-class operation and can make 

a valuable contribution to our hearing. San Diego is the sixth largest county in the country, and coordinating activities for 2,300 precincts and counting over 1.2 million ballots each election is difficult 

and probably feels at times like a thankless task. 

Deborah works tirelessly so that everyone gets a chance to vote 

and makes sure that everybody votes only once. Deborah and her 

staff put voters first. 

With about 100,000 Active Duty military personnel stationed at 

bases in our county, they take pride in making sure the registrar’s 

office is attuned to the unique needs of military voters. And that 

is why they have been known to communicate with service members in the middle of the night and even coordinate ballot delivery 

with sailors at their next port of call. 

Mr. Chairman, let me welcome all of our witnesses. Thank you 

very much, again, for the hearing. I look forward to an open and 

productive dialogue. 

[The prepared statement of Mrs. Davis can be found in the Appendix on page 33.] 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mrs. Davis. 

And we are jointed today by an outstanding panel. We would like 

to give each witness the opportunity to present his or her testi-
4 

mony and each member who is here an opportunity to ask questions. 

We will be looking for a summary of your written testimony that 

will be included in the record. 

Additionally, in particular I want to thank Mr. Robert H. Carey, 

director of the Federal Voting Assistance Program, the Defense 

Human Resources Activity; Captain Angel Jackson-Gillespie, U.S. 

Army 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne from Fort 

Campbell, Kentucky—and I am very grateful to know that she was 

also trained at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, so I know she has excellent training; and Mr. Dean Crepes, director of the Lexington 

County Registration and Elections Commission; and Mrs. Deborah 

Seiler, the San Diego County registrar of voters. 

And we will begin first with Mr. Carey. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT H. CAREY, DIRECTOR, FEDERAL VOTING ASSISTANCE PROGRAM, DEFENSE HUMAN RESOURCES 

ACTIVITY 

Mr. CAREY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Representative Davis, 

members of the committee. Thank you for this opportunity to testify on military voting and the Department of Defense’s Military 

Voting Assistance Program. I also thank you for including my complete written testimony in today’s record. 

As you said, my name is Bob Carey, and I am the director of the 

Federal Voting Assistance Program and have been since July 2009. 

After graduation from college, I joined the Navy, and I continue 

to serve in the Navy Reserves today. I have been both an overseas 

civilian voter and a military voter. I voted by absentee ballot for 

21 straight years. 

With that experience, upon my arrival at the Federal Voting Assistance Program, we used data from the 2008 post-election surveys 

of military personnel and local election officials—data, I may add, 

that has been developed statistically through a statistically rigorous survey methodology refined over decades—to restructure the 

Voting Assistance Program to more effectively support military voters’ most personal needs. 

That 2008 election data showed the most significant problem for 

military voters was not registration. It was not even voter participation rates. When adjusted for the substantial age and gender differences between the general population and the military, the military was registered at and voted at higher rates in the 2008 election than did the general population. 

But when it came to successfully returning an absentee ballot 

sent to them, the difference was remarkable. Ninety-one percent of 

the general population successfully returned their absentee ballots 

in 2008, but only 62 percent of the military did. 

Given this, the Federal Voting Assistance Program shifted to a 

system of direct-to-the-voter assistance, predominantly through online tools, to allow the limited voting assistance officer resources to 

be more focused where needed and to serve more greatly the underserved and underperforming populations. 

To provide that direct-to-the-voter assistance, the Department 

automated the voter registration, absentee ballots, and back-up 

ballots forms with online wizards. Before, military voting assist-
5 

ance officers had to help the voter fill out the form by hand, referencing back to this 466-page compendium of various State laws 

and regulations regarding military voting. 

Now, the military voter can easily and seamlessly complete these 

forms online by answering a series of simple and intuitive questions, generally in the 5- to 8-minute range, even being presented 

all of their Federal candidates in the online ballot wizard as well. 

Additionally, the Department worked with 17 States to deploy 

fully automated online blank ballot delivery systems. It also provided for online marking in most cases, where the voter could access the complete ballot at a secure Web site and, in most cases, 

mark that online, print it out, sign it, and return it. Fourteen 

States also deployed their own online ballot delivery systems. 

The Department believes that such online ballot availability represents the best long-term method of ensuring voters have timely 

and successful access to all their ballots by allowing them to retrieve their ballot wherever and however they can. 

To raise voter awareness of these tools and keep voting deadlines, the Department also executed an aggressive, integrated, strategic communications plan to reach these voters through multiple 

communications channels, print and online advertisements. I think 

we have a couple of versions of that you can see. We ran full-page 

ads in a number of papers, including Defense Times, Stars and 

Stripes, Military Spouse Magazine, International Herald Tribune. 

We did an extensive social media campaign. RSS [really simple 

syndication] feeds, earned media, internal media, direct communications through unit and installation voting assistance officers, 

banners outside of installation gates and commissaries and exchanges, and force-wide emails were all used to inform military 

voters about upcoming elections, the procedures for registering and 

requesting an absentee ballot, and how best and most successfully 

to return those absentee ballots. 

The Federal Voting Assistance Program has and will continue to 

work very closely with the Services as they execute the installation 

voter assistance office mandate of the MOVE Act. 

However, the Department believes those mandates are costly, 

manpower intensive, and require significant effort for the Services 

to implement. Those implementing these programs in the field believe it may actually be counterproductive to an effective voting assistance office program by taking those resources away from the 

unit level, where they can be most precisely and quickly delivered. 

The Department believes all the new voting assistance requirements mandated by the MOVE Act at the installation level, including the voting assistance requirements of the National Voter Registration Act, can be more efficiently accomplished at the unit level 

at far less cost and with far greater effectiveness, and focus more 

specifically on deployed personnel and underperforming segments 

of the voting population. 

Legislatively, the Department believes the States should only 

need to report their military and overseas voting statistics to the 

Department of Defense. Currently, States report statistics to both 

the Department of Defense and Election Assistance Commission. 

The MOVE Act, however, made the Secretary of Defense the lead 

agency in post-election military and overseas voting data collection 
6 

and reporting. Therefore, the Department recommends the Department of Defense be the sole data collection agency to reduce the 

survey burden on States and local election officials, and provide for 

full integration with the Department’s other post-election surveys, 

which capture much of the voting behavior that cannot be captured 

by the reporting data that is provided by the States’ election assistance commission. 

Mr. Chairman, Representative Davis, members of the committee, 

I stand ready for your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Carey can be found in the Appendix on page 35.] 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much. 

And, Captain. 

STATEMENT OF CPT ANGEL JACKSON–GILLESPIE, USA, 2ND 

BRIGADE COMBAT TEAM, 101ST AIRBORNE, FT. CAMPBELL, 

KENTUCKY, U.S. ARMY 

Captain JACKSON-GILLESPIE. Chairman Wilson, Ranking Member 

Davis, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you 

so much for the opportunity to appear today and to represent the 

Army and the soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division, ‘‘The Screaming Eagles,’’ at this hearing. 

My name is Captain Angel Jackson-Gillespie from 526 Brigade 

Support Battalion. I am an adjunct general corps officer, and I 

have served on Active Duty for 9 years. I enlisted in 2001 and received my commission as an air defense officer in 2004. 

I served initially at Fort Bliss, Texas as an air defense platoon 

leader, company executive officer, and battalion S–1 in a Patriot air 

defense unit. I am currently the battalion adjutant for the 526 Brigade Support Battalion 101st Airborne Division. In this position, I 

am responsible for all personnel actions for a 970-soldier unit with 

a mission of providing logistical support to an infantry brigade 

combat team within the 101st. 

Currently, I serve as a voting assistance officer. Most recently, 

I served in this capacity during my unit’s deployment to Operation 

Enduring Freedom from May 2010 to April 2011. 

During this time, I provided voting assistance to approximately 

600 soldiers spread across a wide area of operations in RC [Regional Command] South, based outside Kandahar City, Afghanistan. I am proud to be able to say that the young soldiers I served 

with were well-engaged in the voting process, even while deployed 

in harm’s way. 

While deployed, we requested and received voting information 

from the Federal Voting Assistance Program to ensure material 

was on hand for soldiers in theater. We used the Federal Voting 

Assistance Program Web site extensively, as it provided all the information we needed to assistance soldiers with both registration 

and absentee ballots. 

In addition, we designated primary and alternate company-level 

voting assistance officers to further assist soldiers with the voting 

process. I received frequent emails from the Federal Voting Assistance Program on pending elections that I, in turn, disseminated to 

our company-level voting assistance officers. 
7 

To assist our companies, my team and I also used a database to 

identify soldiers by home of record to notify them of upcoming elections. Additionally, I served as a voting assistance officer in several 

other positions prior to my current one. Over time I have seen significant improvement in access to voting assistance material. 

Thank you again for the chance to represent the Army and my 

unit by appearing in front of the subcommittee today. I look forward to answering your questions. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much for your service. 

Mr. Crepes. 

STATEMENT OF DEAN CREPES, DIRECTOR, LEXINGTON 

COUNTY COMMISSION OF REGISTRATION AND ELECTIONS 

Mr. CREPES. I am honored to be here, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I am. 

My name is Dean Crepes. I am the director of voter registration in 

Lexington County in South Carolina. And also, being a veteran myself, I always have voted. I joined in 1980, and in the Marine Corps 

to 1980, and I understand the need to provide this opportunity to 

bases, to all veterans worldwide. 

In 1992, the General Assembly passed legislation to allow electronic transmission of ballots in emergency situations only. In 

1998, South Carolina participated in voting over the Internet, sponsored by the Department of Defense. 

South Carolina was not only the State participating, but the only 

State that participated on a statewide basis. In 2004, South Carolina was invited and readily accepted an invitation to participate 

in SERVE, Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment. 

And unfortunately, this was cancelled by 2004, but in 2004 

HAVA [Help America Vote Act] came onboard then. The ballot request there with HAVA was for a period of two general elections. 

This requirement made it very difficult for election officials, due to 

the movement of UOCAVA [Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act] voters as much as they do, usually about 2 years 

at one place. 

And in the MOVE, the Military Overseas Voting Empowerment 

Act of 2009 removed that requirement and basically said we will 

remove that requirement. Instead annually, beginning 1 January of 

each year, we will start taking requests for absentee voting for that 

year. So we have already started taking this year for what we have 

in 2011 November for our municipal elections. 

To apply for a UOCAVA absentee ballot, just simply contact the 

office. We will direct them, if they are military, to a FPCA, which 

is a Federal postcard application. If they do not have one or have 

access to one, we will email one to them and have them fill it out 

and send it back to us. And upon conclusion of that, then we will 

file according to elections that that individual is authorized to vote 

in. 

South Carolina has approximately 82,000 voters that are covered 

by this act. Lexington County had, in 2008, in the presidential election—Lexington County, 89 percent for UOCAVA return rate, and 

97 percent for non-UOCAVA. 

And in 2010, we had a 91 percent UOCAVA and a 97 percent for 

UOCAVA, so it is on the increase there. Next year, with the 2012 
8 

presidential elections coming around, I expect that number to get 

even more, and even have more returns from there. 

In Lexington County, one individual with one email address is 

designated a responsible person, too, in this absentee UOCAVA 

voting process. He has a specific fax and email address for people 

to get into. So if someone comes into me, I immediately refer it to 

him. He takes care of all of the contacts needed to be to the 

UOCAVA voter there. We send out whatever needs to be done to 

get taking care of the individual there. 

Once the voted ballot comes in, it is immediately printed, is 

placed in an envelope and sealed, and then placed into a ballot box, 

where it is not touched again until Election Day. And that is where 

trained individuals, along with appointed election commission 

members, receive a note, open, duplicate to a hard ballot, which 

can be read off optically so we can basically get the tally of the 

votes in the night there. 

During the June primaries, which is when we have primaries in 

our State, we still have a majority vote. We have what we call instant runoff ballot, which is basically any office that, or party for 

any office that has more than two potential candidates per office, 

we have an instant runoff ballot, which basically has the choices 

listed—for example, first choice, second choice, third choice, fourth 

choice. 

That is sent along with the UOCAVA ballot for them to have 

that. It comes back to us, and we separate those two out when it 

comes back. 

The instructions on how to vote the instant runoff ballot are in 

there. Therefore, because it takes about approximately 45 days for 

it to transit with mail, though, if we were to take care of problem 

at first with the instant runoff ballot, then we know exactly what 

the first, second, and, third, or fourth choices is for candidates, if 

there is a runoff. 

And then our commission duplicates that onto a hard ballot, 

which we can actually vote electronically—I mean, count electronically. My apologies there. 

In closing, the ultimate goal is to provide instant access to the 

voter registration. That is the process for UOCAVA voters. And I 

know this is all UOCAVA voters, but we give the same attention 

to any voter in Lexington County or South Carolina that wants to 

vote absentee. 

And voters and to some increased success rate for returning ballot percentage is equal to that of the general absentee voting population in this moment. Thank you. I will entertain any questions 

here also. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Crepes can be found in the Appendix on page 47.] 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much. And I think it should be 

noted you are being very humble. The county that you represent 

is one of the fastest-growing counties in the United States. 

Mr. CREPES. Thank you. 

Mr. WILSON. And so as you approach issues, they are ever changing and ever getting larger. So, again, appreciate your service. 
9 

Mr. CREPES. Yes, sir. They always said the good news is Lexington County is growing. The bad news is Lexington County is 

growing. 

Mr. WILSON. That is it. It is a challenge, and you face it. Thank 

you very much. 

Mrs. Deborah Seiler. 

STATEMENT OF DEBORAH SEILER, SAN DIEGO COUNTY 

REGISTRAR, REGISTRAR OF VOTERS 

Mrs. SEILER. Thank you, Chairman Wilson, Ranking Member 

Davis, and distinguished members of the committee for inviting me 

here today to testify regarding military voting. I am Deborah 

Seiler, registrar of voters for the County of San Diego. 

San Diego County is the second most populous county in California behind Los Angeles. And its population is greater than that 

of 21 States. It is home to a very large domestic military population 

in addition to military personnel stationed abroad. Most prominent 

installations known are Camp Pendleton and one home of the Navy 

SEALs out on Coronado Island. 

As registrar I am mindful of the unique challenges facing military and overseas voters. Military voters abroad are stationed in 

remote locations, where mail delivery can be delayed, and they may 

lack access to news regarding upcoming elections. 

The transitory nature of their assignments creates a challenge to 

register to vote timely and to maintain current address information. Our office has taken a series of steps to help these voters, beginning with the voter registration process. 

For the benefit of all voters, including those in the military, we 

have posted our county-specific voter registration form online for 

easy access at any time and from any location through the world. 

The form is interactive and prompts the voter to supply essential 

information. Because the voter keys in that information, the data 

we receive is legible and complete, and no follow-up is required 

with that particular voter. 

Our office also works hard to ensure military ballots and election 

materials are mailed on or before the 45th day before each election. 

Of course, many military voters do not register or do not update 

their mailing address until this 45-day mailing occurs. For these 

late registrants, we send frequent supplemental mailings. And as 

Election Day approaches, we increase our use of email and fax 

technology to distribute the ballots. 

For example, in October, prior to the November 2008 presidential 

elections, we received an email from two Navy servicemen stationed in Iraq. The email was sent 25 days before the election, and 

the servicemen had not received their ballots, because they had not 

supplied us with their mailing address in Iraq, so the ballots went 

to San Diego. 

Staff emailed a second ballot to each of the two men, who both 

voted their ballots, scanned them, and returned them to us by 

email as a PDF document. They had no fax capability where they 

were deployed. 

Following that election, we were informed that the Secretary of 

State interprets California law to permit voted ballots to be returned by fax, but not by email, and we had to discontinue this 
10 

process. California election officials are concerned with this law, because fax technology has become increasingly obsolete, yet email is 

prevalent. 

Nineteen States permit voter ballots to be returned by email, and 

California elections officials support legislation this year to permit 

this for our voters as well. The legislation was not approved, unfortunately, due to security concerns, and it is our opinion that these 

concerns are no greater for email technology than for fax technology. 

We have no evidence of any actual abuse, and we will continue 

to advocate for this technology for our military voters stationed 

abroad. My testimony contains additional information, examples of 

our service and other recommendations. 

I am happy to answer any questions from the committee. 

[The prepared statement of Mrs. Seiler can be found in the Appendix on page 54.] 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much. 

And thank all of you. The procedure we will be going through 

now is a questioning for a 5-minute period by each member who 

is here. We are very fortunate that Jeanette James has volunteered 

to keep the time to keep us within our limit. 

Beginning first, I want to defer immediately to Congressman 

Allen West of Florida. We are very proud that at 2:30 he has been 

selected to be the speaker pro tempore on the House floor. 

Mr. WEST. That is because everyone has flown out of here already. 

Mr. WILSON. This is a high honor that a retired colonel from the 

Army should deserve, so I defer to Colonel West. 

Mr. WEST. Yes. It is called being the low man on the duty roster. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and also ranking member. 

And thank you to the panel for being here. And as some of you 

know, I spent about 22 years Active Duty service in the United 

States military, so this is very important for me, for the friends of 

mine that are still out there, to include my young nephew. 

So, I have three short questions. The first question is, the Overseas Vote Foundation recently released its report from the 2010 

election. One of the problems I see here is that 5,257 military and 

overseas voters completed that survey, but only 107, 3 percent of 

the respondents, were military. 

Is there any means or is there any thought about coming back 

and reconducting a survey in this year, or maybe something leading up to the 2012 election cycle, which maybe we can get an even 

better snapshot, as far as military respondents? 

Mr. CAREY. Mr. West, if I may. The Federal Voting Assistance 

Program actually conducts a statistically random sample survey of 

all military personnel. And we have done that in 2006, 2008, 2010 

and will continue to do that every 2 years. 

Mr. WEST. Okay. 

Mr. CAREY. And that uses the status of forces survey methodology. 

This year we also initiated a survey of military spouses to see 

what their voting behavior is like. We are trying to figure out how 

to best be able to do one for overseas civilians, but we don’t know 

what the total number of overseas civilians is in the first place, As 
11 

well as doing, you know, Department of State voting assistance offices, military voting assistance offices and the local election officials. 

Mr. WEST. Okay. All right. Thank you. 

The next question, the MOVE Act said it would eliminate notarization requirements, but the report found that there were still 

many States where absentee ballots requested such notarization 

signatures. If you could provide back to this committee the States 

that maybe still made that a requirement in 2010, because that is 

something that the MOVE Act said we would get away from. 

But if there are still States out there requiring that, that is a violation of the MOVE Act. So if you could get that back to the committee, I would be very appreciative. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 89.] 

Mr. CAREY. I will get that for the record, sir. 

Mr. WEST. Thank you. And last question, I spent 21⁄2 years in 

Kandahar, so I know it very well. I appreciate your service there. 

And, of course, you understand the very remote nature of some of 

those forward operating bases we have. 

As a matter of fact, 3 weeks ago I visited a village stabilization 

platform. You know, now we are starting to push out our special 

operators into some very remote areas. 

When I look down and see that we are requiring 45 days—I 

mean the ballot has to be mailed 45 days out—when you think of 

some of these places where we have our special operators especially, but also now we are starting to use conventional forces in 

these areas, you take into account weather effects—you know, 

sandstorms—you take into account the breakdown of aircraft, because we don’t want people out doing many long logistical role type 

of convoys. 

Do you think, Captain Jackson-Gillespie that—looking at Tarin 

Kowt, Spin Boldak, some of those places—that 45 days from it 

being mailed here overseas is adequate enough time? Do we think 

we may need to extend that based upon some of these remote locations? 

Captain JACKSON-GILLESPIE. Sir, I do believe 45 days would be 

enough time. It takes about 2 weeks for mail to get into theater 

and down to the FOBs [forward operating bases] where we are, and 

we immediately push mail out to those outlying COBs [contingency 

operating bases] and FOBs, sir. So I do believe 45 days would probably be substantial. 

However, if they are standing up, you know, further out, any 

time you stand up a new unit, it is going to take time to establish 

a system to get mail and communications out to those FOBs and 

COBs. So once established, I think it is enough time, sir. 

Mr. WEST. Okay. And final question, you know, any good commander before they go into a military operation, they do a rehearsal. Is there a possibility that before we get into the next 

major general election cycle in 2012, we may just look to do a snapshot rehearsal of this voting procedure to see if there are any, you 

know, possibility of, you know, glitches, obstacles, loopholes, so that 

we can have lessons learned, we can apply them by the time we 

get to November 2012? 
12 

Mr. CAREY. We will definitely look into that, sir. I think it would 

be something we could definitely try to see if it is possible. 

Mr. WEST. Okay. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Colonel. 

And at this time we proceed with Mrs. Susan Davis of California. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And if I could start with you, Mr. Carey, we all know how critical 

this is, certainly for those who have sacrificed so much for our 

country to make sure that this works well. 

And we know that there certainly were some glitches. But I also 

know that we tried to put this on a pretty short timeframe from 

the time it was enacted to the time everybody had to move forward 

with the 2010 election, which, as I understand it, ordinarily if we 

have to make a major change, we have about 2 years to do that. 

So I wonder if you would address some of the concerns that people have and if you think that these were just some one-time 

issues, as people were adjusting to changes in the regulations that 

the MOVE Act required, or what of those problems are we likely 

to see again? 

What is perhaps systemic in that, that would be a problem? And 

I know you talked about the unit level and how important that 

was. 

Mr. CAREY. Yes, ma’am. For the installation voting assistance office program, the continuing resolution continuing through April 

was problematic in that it prohibited new starts and made it difficult for the Services to be able to start up the program. 

And we are essentially, making these programs out of whole 

cloth at the instillation level when, in fact, for a long time we have 

been doing it at the unit level. 

The other issue is that the change of duty station process is migrating from the installation level to the unit level, supported by 

online applications. Whereas before you would go to the readiness 

support group or the joint administrative center or the personnel 

support detachment and talk to the pay folks and the medical 

folks, now you are doing that all at the unit level. 

And I am concerned that we are going to leave an orphaned voting assistance program at the installation level. And, frankly, it is 

going to be very difficult for people to understand why they have 

to leave their unit, go to the installation, when they can just talk 

to the unit voting assistance officer and get it that much quicker. 

So that is probably one of the big concerns about this. I mean, 

the Services are trying to move heaven and earth to make this happen as soon as possible, but given the hiring freezes, the civilian 

personnel cuts, it is difficult to just turn this on. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Well, thank you. And so those are some things that 

we should be anticipating or could be problematic. 

Mr. CAREY. Well, I think that, approximately 80 percent of all 

the installation voting assistance offices are now established. The 

Marine Corps says that they will have all 18 of theirs up and running by August 11th, and I believe that the Air Force will have all 

theirs up and running by the end of the fiscal year. That will complete all the Services. 

Mrs. DAVIS. So—— 
13 

Mr. CAREY. So I think that we will have a much better ability. 

But there is still the issue of, might we be able to spend these resources better, if we focus it at the unit level and allow it to be a 

little more tailored? 

Mrs. DAVIS. Yes. Thank you I appreciate that. And certainly it 

seems to me that there is also an education issue here as well, encouraging and making sure that service members are voting, that 

they know that actually there is a lot of assistance out there for 

them. And we want to make sure that they know that. Thank you. 

Mr. CAREY. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. DAVIS. I wanted to turn to Mrs. Seiler just to look at some 

of the ways in which, I think, we can actually make this better for 

our military and overseas voters and to enable them to be able to 

track their ballots, which is an issue that we certainly have been 

involved in. 

And I wonder if you could tell us how tracking is working and 

how you might think this might serve the military voter? 

Mrs. SEILER. Well, thank you. 

Mrs. DAVIS. And maybe you can explain for me what that means 

first. 

Mrs. SEILER. Okay. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Mrs. SEILER. Let me just tell you that in our office in 2008, we 

implemented the ballot tracking system, both, actually, for ballots 

as well as for voter registrations. 

So currently any voter from any location throughout the world 

can log into our Web site. They can determine what their voter registration status is. They can determine their political party. They 

simply have to enter their birth date, their home address, and their 

Zip Code, and they can figure out if they are registered to vote. 

We have had about 350,000 hits on that site since we implemented it in 2008, so it is working very well. 

In addition to tracking the voter registration status, of course, 

voters can track to determine whether their mail ballot has been 

issued and whether it has been returned. 

For example, in the 1-month, the 29-day period prior to the November 2010 election we just had, we had about 156,000 people access that site. So we have had tremendous success with our ballot 

tracking program. 

Mrs. DAVIS. And we are acknowledging that is something that 

certainly Californians can do that. They can track their ballots. But 

individuals in other States cannot at this time. So we are really 

learning from the military and I appreciate that. Thank you. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much. 

And we now proceed to Mr. Coffman, of Colorado. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First of all, Mr. Carey, if we accept your assertion that recent reports are skewed as to military voting participation and participation rates were not worse in 2010 compared to 2006, it still doesn’t 

appear as if the situation has significantly improved. 

And with the 2012 election cycle starting in a mere 6 months, I 

don’t see us on track to see increases next year either. What will 

be improved between 2012 and 2010? 
14 

Mr. CAREY. Thank you Mr. Coffman. I would say, first, there was 

a substantial improvement between 2006 and 2010. 

The 2006 voter participation rate from the Active Duty military 

survey showed a 22- to 24-percent voter participation rate. And in 

2010, we are showing approximately a 29-percent voter participation rate. Now, that is about a 20- to 30-percent increase. And the 

regular voter participation rate for the general population was only 

about 41 percent. 

Now about half the military, 60 percent of the military is under 

29, but only about 20 percent of the general population is. And 

voter participation rates for the younger voters are much lower. So 

when we do that age and gender adjustment, the military voter 

participation rate has—in 2008 and it appears to be in 2010; we 

are still finalizing those numbers—appears to exceed that of the 

general population. 

The one cohort, the one age cohort we are having problem is in 

the 18- to 24-year-olds, with which we identified in the 2008 postelection report. And so we are trying to expand that ability to reach 

out to the 18- to 24-year-olds, as well to the military spouses. 

We have a $16.2 million program that just closed out, grant program to the States to be able to deploy even more online ballot delivery systems that we can then direct the voter to through our online portal. 

And then we are also working with the military postal system in 

order to be able to improve even more upon their 5.2-day ballot return average time, in order to be able to try to improve those rates, 

sir. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Let me just say as someone who served in Iraq 

with the United States Marine Corps and was not able to vote in 

my own State’s election in 2005, I take this issue pretty seriously. 

And let me just say this as well, that I think comparing the 

young men and women to the same age demographic of their civilian counterparts is a real, I think, understatement as to really the 

quality of our men and women in the military. I mean, according 

to the U.S. Army, 70 percent of young people today are ineligible 

to enlist in the U.S. Army. So I think probably you might reexamine that. 

To the voting assistance officer, Captain, in your experience 

would military voters be willing to sacrifice the privacy of secrecy 

of their ballots in order to return the ballots by fax or email, rather 

than through the postal system? 

Captain JACKSON-GILLESPIE. Sir, I can’t speak for all military 

personnel. I think of those who are going to vote and are willing 

to vote, they would probably have their vote counted whichever 

way they can. And especially in a deployed environment, they 

would probably use those tools by email, if they could. 

So can’t speak for all, but I know I would, sir. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you. 

And let me ask a question to the election officers, to both of you. 

Do you send the absentee ballots by military voters separately? Or 

are they sent in the same way as regular absentee ballots? 

I know that certain States—and this has been problematic for 

certain States—given their schedule for primary elections and stuff 
15 

like that, they differ. But I know Colorado had difficulty complying 

with the requirement. 

Mrs. SEILER. Thank you, sir. In San Diego County, we have for 

many years been sending our military ballots at 45 days before the 

election to those voters in combat zones. We had worked this out 

with our U.S. Postal Service representatives. We worked very closely with them, and they had advised us that 45 days was a good target date for people in combat zones. 

Then we were mailing at 39 days for those people in non-combat 

zones. With the MOVE Act, we have changed that now so that all 

of those military and overseas ballots go out at 45 days for all elections. And this is not simply for the Federal elections, but we try 

to meet that target for every election. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. 

Mr. CREPES. Yes, sir. We have two ways, and we do email or fax 

ballots after they have been qualified for an election. Now, we do 

have a cover sheet that goes along with it they have to sign, letting 

them know they understand that this is done by maybe unsecured 

means of transmitting the ballot. 

But when the ballot comes back to us, it is immediately printed 

and stuffed in an envelope, and then put in a ballot box, and immediately taken off of the computer that the person received it in, and 

then put onto a separate file. 

Also, the other one, we have an envelope here that is a red envelope, that is a sort of an attention-getter to the U.S. Mail to ‘‘This 

is a UOCAVA ballot; make it happen pretty quick.’’ And 45 days 

has been adequate with us there, sir. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much. 

And we proceed with Dr. Heck, of Nevada. 

Dr. HECK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The first question I have is what kind of recommendations would 

you make to strengthen the safeguards put in place by UOCAVA 

and the MOVE Act, because I am looking at the report from the 

Overseas Vote Foundation for the 2010 election results, and they 

still report that 33 percent of military and overseas voters reported 

attempting to vote, but were unable to, because they didn’t receive 

their ballot or they received it too late. 

And so we have heard that 45 days is enough, but 33 percent attempted, but didn’t get it in time or didn’t get it back in time. And 

while that represented a decrease from 50 percent for 2008, I think 

we would all agree that 33 percent is still unacceptable for our 

oversea voters. 

In addition, I find it odd that they said that those who used electronic means to request a ballot were less likely to receive a ballot 

than those who did not, and that although the MOVE Act eliminated requirements for notarization, some States continue to require that. 

So what would the recommendations be from those of you on the 

panel to strengthen these safeguards to make sure that everybody 

gets their ballot in time and can return it in time and make the 

process easier? 

Mrs. SEILER. Okay. Thank you, sir. 
16 

One of the recommendations that we would like to offer, if it 

were possible, would be to ensure in some manner that we have 

current, up-to-date mailing address information. As I said in my 

testimony, for those voters who are registered with us and have upto-date mailing information, we can send that mailing out at 45 

days. It is highly effective. 

It is those personnel whose address has changed and we don’t 

know about it until after that 45-day mailing that, I think, are 

really what is creating the issue for us, and for the voter. And, in 

those cases, we do. We send our supplemental mailings. We send 

ballots by email, by fax, however we can get the ballot to them. But 

the time is shortened. 

If there was some semi-automatic way that we could be informed, maybe if we had access to a database that the military 

services provided, so that we could match our database against a 

database provided by the military that indicates movement, so we 

could capture that at, say, 55 days before the election, we would 

have those updated addresses ready to go for that 45-day mailing. 

I think that would be a huge benefit to us and to the voters. 

Dr. HECK. Anybody with any other recommendations? 

Mr. CAREY. Sir, to follow up on that, we have a system in place 

to be able to try to provide updated addresses. The problem is 

that—I believe it is 10 USC Section 123 prohibits the Department 

from releasing the mailing address of military personnel assigned 

to a deployable unit. And so that limits our ability to be able to— 

and I am not exactly sure of that title and section. I know it is 10 

USC, but I think it is Section 123. 

And so that might be something that needs reconsideration. We 

are working with the Defense Manpower Data Center to see if we 

can actually open up the DEERS [Defense Enrollment Eligibility 

Reporting System] or the DEEDS [Data Elements for Emergency 

Department Systems] database to State election officials, and 

maybe the adjutants general, to be able to provide some method of 

address verification as well. 

Dr. HECK. I guess, then, that would kind of bring me to my second question to the captain, being a voting assistance officer. What 

kind of outreach, specifically, let us say, the Army—what are you 

doing to make sure that those that are deployed know that you are 

there and know—I mean, I am sure if they don’t know that they 

have to get their address updated or whatever, you know, before 

45 days, so you have 45 days to turn it around, it makes it more 

difficult. 

I know that when I was deployed to Iraq, there was a poster on 

the wall that said if you have any questions, you know, here is 

your VAO [voting assistance officer]. But that was it. I mean, I 

never met the VAO. I knew nothing about it. And I had to go seek 

the VAO out. So what kind of proactive outreach are we trying to 

do? 

Captain JACKSON-GILLESPIE. Thank you, sir. At my level, we 

have voting assistance officers at the battalion and each of the company levels. We receive information from the Federal Voting Assistance Program, and we push that information down to the company 

level. 
17 

We also get the posters off of the Federal Voting Assistance Program Web site. We hang them up. But we can’t force soldiers to 

come into our office. I can’t force a soldier to go in and see his voting assistance officer. We make it known who we are, where we 

are, and it is on the soldier to come in and talk to us, sir. 

Dr. HECK. All right. 

Captain JACKSON-GILLESPIE. We will provide them with whatever assistance they need. If they need to know when an election 

is happening, we will give them that, how to request a ballot, how 

to register to vote. We get all of that information from the Federal 

Voting Assistance Program Web site, and we pass it on to the soldier and allow them to use our computer, sir. 

Dr. HECK. Is it a passive process, or is it active? Are you out 

there holding briefings or, you know, telling folks you are there, because I am sure that the folks that are deployed at the COBs and 

FOBs have a lot of other things on their mind than coming to seek 

you out. 

Captain JACKSON-GILLESPIE. Yes, sir. We are out there as much 

as we can be. We are out at COBs and FOBs, and we can have soldiers from anywhere from three to five to seven different COBs at 

one time. 

And soldiers may be out, and then they come back in. But we are 

out there as much as we can be, sir. We let them know who we 

are. We push information out to the units that those soldiers are 

assigned or attached to. 

And every battalion has voting assistance offices. So whatever 

battalion they are attached to, they can go and see another voting 

assistance officer. It doesn’t have to be the one in their own unit. 

Dr. HECK. All right. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much. 

And we will proceed now to Mrs. Hartzler, of Missouri. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

This is such an important hearing. Last year, as I went through 

my district—I have Fort Leonard Wood and Whiteman Air Force 

Base—I can tell you, at almost every town hall that we had, this 

issue came up. And the outrage and frustration of people that the 

thought that we have men and women in harm’s way, putting their 

life on the line and then not being able to vote, is just abominable. 

And so I am so glad we are having this hearing, and I appreciate 

your efforts to try to make sure that they have a right to vote. 

But I wanted follow up on—I was, too, like Dr. Heck, was concerned about this report that one out of three soldiers reported that 

they wanted to vote, but failed to do so because they didn’t receive 

a ballot or because the ballot was too late. That is just shocking, 

and it is unacceptable. 

And I wanted to just clarify again, what are the reasons that one 

out of three soldiers who wanted to vote couldn’t. What are the 

problems? You mentioned the addresses. But, Mr. Carey, what 

other problems are there that could cause that? 

Mr. CAREY. Well, we had problems also with ballots getting out 

late, past the deadline. A case in point, New York was granted a 

waiver, because they had a very aggressive ballot delivery process 

in place, and they even missed that deadline. And that was 50,000 
18 

ballots that were delivered 7 to 12 days after the waiver deadline 

that they were given. And then, Illinois had a number of problems 

as well. That was about 4,000 ballots. 

Another part of this—but I go back to being able to post these 

ballots online. The issue abut posting the ballots online is that you 

don’t have to wait for your ballot to arrive by mail. You can go online. You can download it, and you can print it out, and you can 

vote it. 

Now granted, there are going to be people that are going to, you 

know, not have that online access. And we are working with the 

MWR [morale, welfare, and recreation] cafes. There are 1,000 

MWR Internet cafes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 135 of these mobile ones. 

We are working with them in order to be able to try to put the 

widgets on those desktops in order to be able to provide an easy 

access, as well as printers, in order to able to see if they can actually get this printed out. But that to me represents the long-term 

solution. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Sounds good. 

Mrs. Seiler, you mentioned you are advocating for the email 

versus the fax, because there aren’t many fax machines, and you 

mentioned online. So what is the difference here? With an email, 

would it be scanned? I assume you would scan it and then email 

it? 

Mrs. SEILER. That is correct. And that is what these voters did. 

They scanned those voted ballots, and they emailed them back to 

us. And then they have the same privacy protections, or attempted 

privacy protections. 

Obviously, it is a hard copy ballot coming in. But we make every 

effort, as does my colleague, to make sure that that is—once the 

signature is verified, the ballot is separated. And then it is duplicated onto a ballot, once it is separated from its cover sheet. So we 

make every effort to really preserve the privacy of the voter to the 

greatest extent possible. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. So to be able to do the email voting, you would 

have to change laws? Is that what you are saying? 

Mrs. SEILER. California’s law would have to be changed. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Oh, California’s law. 

Mrs. SEILER. So that is what we are seeking. The laws vary from 

State to State on this, apparently. And our group of election officials in California is supporting legislation to allow us to accept 

those email ballots. 

Now, this is on the return side. We are able to email the ballots 

out, so that is not an issue. If we get very close to an election—— 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Right, right. 

Mrs. SEILER [continuing]. Somebody calls from Iraq, we can 

email that ballot to them. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Okay. 

Go back to the States, Mr. Carey. I know I had heard as well 

that there are certain States, due to the primaries and other 

issues, that were kind of the hold-up in this. What can be done, or 

what needs to be done within these States, to help get them out? 

Do they need to change their primary dates, or do we need to 

change—what do we need to do here? 
19 

Mr. CAREY. Most States are responding by changing their primaries. Some States with late primaries also have very quick canvassing and election result turnarounds, and so they are able to actually get the ballots out 45 days prior, even with late primaries. 

But for most States, they have more extensive post-election canvassing requirements, and so it requires them to, if they are going 

to be able to get the ballots out 45 days prior, most States are saying they have to change their primary date. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Have any of them done that yet? 

Mr. CAREY. Yes, ma’am, a number have, including a number that 

were granted a waiver in the 2010 cycle. So they probably won’t 

be needing another late primary election waiver. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Okay. Very good. 

Well, thank you for your efforts. Keep it up, and please continue 

to do everything possible to make sure that our soldiers’ vote 

counts, because they are the reason we are able to vote and have 

freedoms. 

Thank you. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Mrs. Hartzler, for your leadership on this issue. 

It is now my turn. And I, again, I am just so grateful for all of 

you being here today. You really are giving us great information. 

I would also like to point out that this week we received a report, 

‘‘Military Voting in 2010: A Step Forward, But a Long Way To Go,’’ 

by Eric Eversole. This is by the Military Voter Protection Project. 

We will be providing this to all the committee members. 

It is a study published by the Military Family United’s Military 

Voter Protection Project and the AMVETS [American Veterans] 

Legal Clinic at the Chapman University’s School of Law. And at 

this time, I would like to move unanimous consent that it be included in our record. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 69.] 

Mr. WILSON. Hearing no objection, it is included. 

I would like to reference part of this report, and that is the fact 

that it was also in an article by J. Christian Adams in the Examiner—The Washington Examiner—that, sadly, 14 States and the 

District of Columbia failed to comply with the 45-day standard. As 

a former election commissioner, that really startled me. I can remember in the campaign, hearing over and over again where 

States did not comply with the 45 days. 

But I would like to hear how it was done. And so, Mr. Crepes, 

how was the 45-day preparation of the ballot achieved in Lexington 

County? 

Mr. CREPES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Well, the 45 days—we are one of the larger counties in South 

Carolina. There are about 10 large counties, and we are number 

four or five. It depends on which way you hold your head when you 

are counting on the day there. We are one of the ones that get our 

ballot styles up and checked and authorized first, and so we are 

able to get out to 45 days. 

But there is no county in South Carolina does not meet the 45- 

day deadline. If you do, we have to answer to a lot of people, and 

we don’t want to do that. Last election we were 55 days in Lex-
20 

ington County getting the ballots mailed out, so we don’t have 

problem at all with the 45 days there. 

Mr. Carey, if I may back up for a moment, we were talking about 

having the vote go online and view his or her ballot style online 

there. The problem with that in Lexington County and some of the 

other larger counties, we have 70 to 110 different ballot styles in 

some of our counties because of school boards, et cetera, we have 

on our ballots. 

We would still have to come up with some sort of electronic way 

to match that person through the system to a specific ballot, because we can have one person on one street corner, and his neighbor next door would be on a totally different ballot style. And I 

have had a lot of problems with that, calling and saying, ‘‘Well, soand-so voted this way.’’ 

That is something I think we ought to look into with the ballot 

style, that you would be able to view them online and possibly even 

vote online. 

Mr. WILSON. And, Mrs. Seiler, how did you address that in San 

Diego? 

Mrs. SEILER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

We addressed this by our filing period ends 88 days before the 

election. Very often there is an extension. We, too, have hundreds. 

We have up to 600 different ballot styles, but we work very closely with our printer, so we have—it is a tight deadline for us, but 

we are working constantly with our printers to make sure that our 

ballot layouts are sent to them, and that they are ready to go and 

that everybody who is on our military and overseas file as of the 

54th day is in that 45-day mailing. 

So it is really just a process that we have honed by working with 

our suppliers. 

Mr. WILSON. Well, I am really impressed by both of your positive 

attitude, because it would be easy to point out that you have split 

precincts, you have referendums, you have municipal elections, you 

have incorporations, you have annexations. And that you didn’t 

complain, I am impressed. 

At the same time, Mr. Carey, you have also been working with 

local election commissions in regard to the 45 days. What kind of 

advice have you given them? 

Mr. CAREY. If they have compliance problems, we have offered to 

help them as much as possible. We were actually able to find some 

unique solutions to some States who were having concerns about 

not being able to get the ballots out 45 days prior. And we were 

able to examine their requirements and actually recommend some 

unique solutions that allowed a lot of them to get the ballot out on 

time. 

The biggest thing is going back to the online system. For our 17 

States we were able to have precinct-level ballots that were down 

to the individual precinct, delivered to the voter online—statewide 

systems for $65,000 to $75,000. So that represents to us a real good 

opportunity in order to be able to reduce the burden of filling absentee ballots and stuffing the ballots and getting them sent out. 

Mr. WILSON. And as an indication of how important what you are 

saying and how important this is to the American people, we will 

have a second round and begin with Mrs. Susan Davis. 
21 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I think it is clear from a lot of the comments that you have 

made, in many ways the MOVE Act is leading the way and doing 

some things that perhaps are not being done in States. And one of 

the things that was actually eliminated is the notary signature. 

And I understand, neither Mr. Crepes nor Mrs. Seiler, you have 

that requirement in your State. 

But is that a problem, do you think? Have you seen any reason 

why that was perhaps not something that should have been part 

of the MOVE Act? How would our soldiers have found those notaries in the field? 

Mr. CREPES. Well, actually, it is not a notary for us. It is just a 

witness signature. It has been eliminated from the UOCAVA requirements on our ballots there. That is how we can email them 

back and forth. But it is not eliminated for the average citizen in 

the county there. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Is there something we can learn from that, Mrs. 

Seiler? 

Mrs. SEILER. California has not had a notary requirement for 

mail ballots, to my knowledge. We have had a requirement back in 

the late 1970s that people had to supply a reason. And that was 

eliminated in 1979. And we have had complete no-excuse absentee 

voting since that time. 

And I think that what we learned from that is that voters love 

it. And it has really—we have been promoting a permanent voteby-mail for our domestic military, as well as our overall population 

of voters. And we have seen our turnout really rise above the statewide average and above that of all of our neighbors in Southern 

California. 

Mrs. DAVIS. As we think about electronic voting in the future, 

too, is there any reason that people should be concerned about 

some of the fraud issues that are raised often when it comes to absentee voting? 

Mrs. SEILER. In San Diego County, we check every single return 

envelope that arrives in our office. And we actually compare the 

signature on that envelope with the signature that we have on file. 

So we believe that the process is very fair, very precise, very clean. 

And we do not believe that we have evidence of any kind of widespread fraud in our mail ballot voting. 

Mr. CAREY. Representative Davis, on the notary issue, the law 

actually says that the State cannot reject a ballot for not having 

a notary. The MOVE Act doesn’t say that the State can’t ask for 

a notary. And we can’t compel the States to take that off their 

books or take that off their ballots. So that might be something if 

you are looking at, you know, how that issue could be addressed, 

that might be one of those aspects. 

As far as the Federal Voting Assistance Program right now, we 

are not participating,we don’t have programs right now for the 

electronic return of a voted ballot. You know, we are not doing an 

Internet voting program, although there was voting over the Internet in 2000 or the SERVE [Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment] Project in 2004. 

There is a requirement in the National Defense Authorization 

Act of 2002 and 2005 that the Department field an electronic ab-
22 

sentee voting demonstration project where military voters can cast 

their ballots in a Federal election. And it allows us to wait until 

the Election Assistance Commission has developed guidelines. 

We are working very closely the Election Assistance Commission 

and the National Institutes of Standards and Technologies to develop that, but that is a requirement on the Department of Defense 

to eventually be working towards fielding an Internet voting system. 

Mrs. DAVIS. And as far as you know, from what you have seen 

to this date, are there any issues that would jump out at you, that 

you think would need to be addressed at that time? 

Mr. CAREY. We are exploring a lot of those issues. I mean, we 

are not at the point where we believe that we can reliably deploy 

an Internet voting system by the Department of Defense. 

There is benefit in the diversity of the election system that we 

have right now. With 7,800 election jurisdictions, being able to attack any one jurisdiction’s election system will have a lot less effect 

than attacking, let us say, a centralized DOD system. So that, in 

and of itself, provides a lot of security, I think, that needs to be 

weighed in any of those analyses. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

And if I could, quickly, Captain Jackson-Gillespie, I am sure that 

from where you sit, you would love to see everyone out in the 

field—FOBs, everyone included—be serious and interested in voting. But that probably isn’t a reality that you deal with every day. 

Is there anything that you think could be done to encourage even 

more than what you are doing in the outreach that would change 

the statistics? Or is it really that people are very, very focused on 

the job at hand, and they are just not as engaged in it, because 

they are away from their communities? 

Captain JACKSON-GILLESPIE. Thank you, ma’am. 

I do believe that once you are in-theater, you are very focused on 

your mission at hand. I mean, that is your priority while you are 

there. I can’t say that there are those that wanted to and couldn’t 

vote, because I don’t know. 

I do know we assist where we can. And in my unit, we have 

also—or units that I have been in—we would incorporate voting assistance with other things that we had going on, like a personal 

asset inventory, where we account for everybody. And at that time, 

where they are signing their name saying, ‘‘Hey, I am present and 

accounted for,’’ ‘‘Hey, have you registered to vote? Do you have— 

do you need any assistance with registering to vote?’’ 

So we would possibly incorporate it with something else. But we 

do what we can to help everybody out. And I think those who really 

want to vote, we are able to help them. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thanks very much. Thanks for what you do. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Mrs. Davis. 

And we now proceed to Mr. Coffman. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First of all, let me just say for the record that I, along with many 

Americans, are not supportive of Internet voting and am, in fact, 

deeply opposed to it. And I understand scanning documents and 

then emailing them, where you have a hard copy, which is a voted 
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ballot, I certainly understand that, but, obviously, concerned when 

it goes beyond that. 

Let me just say this. In the State of Colorado, election law is that 

we don’t have same-day registration. So if somebody shows up to 

the polls, and they are not shown as registered to vote in the poll 

book, then they are handed a provisional ballot. And they vote that 

provisional ballot, and that ballot is kept separate. 

And then the respective county clerks then vet that ballot to 

make sure that that person had the legal right to cast that ballot. 

And so, actually, the election isn’t closed out and I think the county 

clerks have a couple weeks to do that. So the election isn’t closed 

out for a couple weeks. 

But if a military ballot arrives 1 minute after 7:00 p.m. on the 

Tuesday of the election, it doesn’t count. 

And so has there ever been consideration, absent the focus on 

Internet voting, for those ballots that come—having a standard 

across the country, just as we have the 45-day standard, that if the 

ballot is shown to be having been mailed from the overseas duty 

station prior to the election, that in fact that ballot be counted in 

the same way that a provisional ballot be counted? 

Mr. CAREY. The Department of Defense recommends to the 

States that they allow up to 15 days after the election for the ballots to be returned, so long as they are voted by Election Day. And 

a number of States have that, or better. But many States also require the ballot to be returned on Election Day. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. 

And let me just say having served in a forward operating base 

in a fairly remote area on the western side of Iraq, the mail system 

was abysmal—I mean, just actually abysmal by the time it got to 

us or by the time it got out, as well as we didn’t have fax machines 

or—there was very little connectivity out there. 

So I think that that is something that we ought to look at in 

terms of having a uniform standard, just as we have now on the 

registration system. And I think also on—I understand that there 

were a number of States that were not in compliance with the act 

in the last election cycle for a variety of reasons, but just say the 

45-day requirement. 

What, I mean, were actions taken by the Justice—some States 

applied for waivers but I don’t think any waivers were granted, it 

is my understanding. Maybe you can respond to that? 

Mr. CAREY. There were 12 original applications. One State withdrew. Of the remaining 11, six were denied, five were granted. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Oh, five were granted? 

Mr. CAREY. And of the five that were granted, one failed to comply. I personally called up the election officials to tell them what 

their status was. The Department of Justice was with me on the 

calls to the States that were being denied waivers. 

And the Department told them immediately that the assistant 

attorney general was authorized enforcement action and they 

would like to enter into negotiations at that point with the State 

in order to be able to figure out the best resolution. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Was action taken, though? I mean I don’t see 

where formal action was taken by the Justice Department, as it 
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would occur on another voting rights issue. Did the Justice Department take formal action and sanction any of these States? 

Mr. CAREY. Yes, sir. In all 14 of these States, the Department of 

Justice either took onboard, I believe—I don’t know the exact terminology; I would have to ask the Department of Justice. The 

States took effective action themselves and the Department accepted that. Or they actually went to Federal court and either got consent decrees or got a Federal decree from that Federal court. But 

in all these cases, action was taken by the Department of Justice. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And for the record I am wondering if you could get back—if we 

could have a summary of that action that was taken by noncomplying States. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 89.] 

Mr. CAREY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Coffman. And I, again, remain really impressed at the positive attitude of our registrars, because I do 

know the challenges you face. And one that has been mentioned, 

I would like to know how each of you, Mr. Crepes, Mrs. Seiler— 

how do you address maintaining current addresses, particularly the 

military because of their deployment, their travel. 

How in the world do you keep their address current and in good 

faith make every effort and also even prior to that, keeping their 

registration current? And so, Mr. Crepes and then Mrs. Seiler, if 

you all would tell us, how do you work with young people and their 

family members, too—the military families—on registration and 

maintaining current addresses? 

Mr. CREPES. Well, we try basically to reach out to them as much 

as we possibly can. I go to talk to several high schools locally, 

which basically graduates these young adults that are heading into 

the military, then, and explain to them what the situation is and 

why they need to basically keep it updated, if they are wanting to 

vote. 

As far as if someone is deployed and sends something to us, we 

inform them through email to please keep your addresses updated, 

et cetera, with us so that we can make sure if there is any election 

that you need to vote in in the future, we can get you from there. 

And if there are local family members in the county from a reservist that is activated, the family members are contacted to basically try to keep the addresses updated, because they will have the 

most recent address of their deployed father or child or whatever— 

father, child, son, daughter, whoever it may be that is in the forward bases. 

But primarily it is through education with the high schools there. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you. 

And Mrs. Seiler. 

Mrs. SEILER. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Yes, we have a couple 

of tools. I don’t know that any are perfect. As I mentioned earlier, 

it would really be nice to have some sort of automatic database 

that we could run up against. But we do have our tracking system, 

which allows the voters to track their registration. 
25 

They can track the address that we have on file for them, and 

so forth. So that is one avenue. We work with the bases. Our staff 

work with the bases at some of the major military installations to 

make sure that they have information, voter registration forms and 

so forth. 

We have our own voter form online, which actually serves as a 

permanent voter registration, and as we send out any information 

to the voter, if that comes back as undeliverable and we get updated information, we update the voter’s record and then send 

them a notice that we have updated their record. 

And finally, we have noticed that with the MOVE Act, the voting 

assistance officers have been, at least in our county, they have been 

more diligent around January of each year, urging the service personnel to reregister to vote or to let us know of any address 

changes. 

Mr. WILSON. Well, thank you again. And it has really been inspiring, this hearing. 

And, Captain Jackson-Gillespie, thank you for your enthusiasm 

and service in Afghanistan. 

And, Mr. Carey, we look forward to working with you for any 

changes. 

And, again, I know personally the great work of Mr. Crepes and 

his commission. 

And, Mrs. Seiler, it is great to see you again. I am really honored. I had the privilege of serving with Mrs. Seiler as an election 

observer in Bulgaria in June 1990. And she and I have both seen 

the success of free and democratic elections where a country has 

evolved from, the day we arrived there, a totalitarian State, to be 

a free market democracy and a great ally today of the United 

States. 

And that is where elections can make such a difference in the 

United States and around the world. 

If there are no further questions, we shall be adjourned. Thank 

you. 

[Whereupon, at 2:47 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

JULY 15, 2011 

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WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING 

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RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. COFFMAN 

Mr. CAREY. There are no states that require notarization for absentee registration 

or ballot request. However, one state, Alabama, requires one signature from a witness (U.S. Citizenship not required) at least 18 years old for a Federal Post Card 

Application registration or absentee ballot request. Two states, Alabama and Louisiana require either a Notary or two witnesses at least 18 years old (U.S. Citizenship not required) to sign the return voted ballot envelope. Recently, both states, 

have taken legislative action that could eliminate their notary and witness requirements. On June 15, 2011, Governor Robert Bentley of Alabama signed into law SB 

55, which grants the Secretary of State rulemaking authority to, among other 

things, eliminate the notary and witness requirements for UOCAVA voters. Similarly, Louisiana has recently approved HB 524 which would eliminate their notary 

and witness requirement. The Louisiana legislation is currently awaiting ‘‘pre-clearance’’ from the Department of Justice before it can take effect. 

There are no states that require notarization for absentee registration or ballot 

request. However, one state, Alabama, requires one signature from a witness (U.S. 

Citizenship not required) at least 18 years old for a Federal Post Card Application 

registration or absentee ballot request. Two states, Alabama and Louisiana require 

either a Notary or two witnesses at least 18 years old (U.S. Citizenship not required) to sign the return voted ballot envelope. Recently, both states, have taken 

legislative action that could eliminate their notary and witness requirements. On 

June 15, 2011, Governor Robert Bentley of Alabama signed into law SB 55, which 

grants the Secretary of State rulemaking authority to, among other things, eliminate the notary and witness requirements for UOCAVA voters. Similarly, Louisiana 

has recently approved HB 524 which would eliminate their notary and witness requirement. The Louisiana legislation is currently awaiting ‘‘pre-clearance’’ from the 

Department of Justice before it can take effect. 

In addition, Alaska, Virginia and Wisconsin require one signature from a witness 

at least 18 years of age on the return voted ballot envelope. Wisconsin further specifies that the witness must be a U.S. citizen. The returned voted ballot will not be 

counted in these states if the witness signature(s) are not present. [See page 24.] 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. WEST 

Mr. CAREY. The actions taken by non complying states are summarized in the Department of Justice’s report entitled ‘‘Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee 

Voting Act (UOCAVA) 2010 Annual Report to Congress’’ (attached). This report 

states that the Department of Justice initiated litigation or out-of-court agreements 

to enforce MOVE Act amendments to UOCAVA in 14 jurisdictions (11 states, 2 territories, and the District of Columbia). The following is a brief list of the major actions taken. 

1. Enforcement Actions Following Denial of Undue-Hardship Waivers by the Department of Defense in six jurisdictions: Alaska, Colorado, the District of Columbia, 

Hawaii, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Wisconsin. 

2. Enforcement Action for Failure to Comply with Terms of Undue-Hardship 

Waiver in one state, New York. 

3. Civil Actions Filed to Enforce UOCAVA in three jurisdictions: Guam, Illinois, 

and New Mexico. 

4. Memorandum Agreements and Letter Agreements in four states: Kansas, Mississippi, Nevada and North Dakota. [See page 11.] 

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