Evening star., 1944-01-26
Text Of Message on Service Ballots
President Tells Congress Men and Women at War Fronts
R9htfuIIy Resent Inability to Cost Votes in Election

- "a
Inability to Cost Votes
ton Is itself proof Of the unwork.
ability Of existing State laws.
House Bill = Fraud"
I consider such proposed legisla.
ton ; fraud on the soldiers and
sailors and marines now training
and fighting for us and for our ss-
cred rights. It is a fraud upon the
American people. It would not en-
able any soldier to vote with any
greater facility than was provided
by public law 712, under which only
negligible number of soldiers votes
were cast.
This Recommendation" contained
in this piece of legislation may be
needed by few States but will not
lin fact, cannot-be carried out by
all the States. Two State. would re-
quire constitutional amendment
in order to adopt practical method
of absentee voting-which is obvi-
ously impossible to DO before the
November elections. Only a handful
Of the States-nine-will have Legis-
latures regularly In session this year,
and, to date, only eight other States
have called special sessions of their
Legislatures for this purpose.
Besides, the Secretary of War,
who will have the bulk of the admin
istrative responsibility for distribut-
ing and collecting the ballots, has
stated: mo procedure for offering
the vote to servicemen can be effec-
lively administered by the War and
Navy Departments in time of war
unless it is uniform and as simple as
possible. Especially is this true with
regard to the voting of persons out
side the United States. An
Army engaged in waging war cannot
accommodate that primary function
to multiple differences in the re-
quirements of the 48 States as to
voting procedure"
Change Of Machinery Needed.
am convinced that even If all
the States tried to carry out the
recommendations" contained in
this bill. the most that could be ac-
complished practically would be to
authorize the Army and Navy to
distribute and collect ballots pre-
pared by the States in response to
postcard requests from service
men-the very procedure set forth
In public law 7l2, which has been
such failure.
| What is needed is a complete
change Of machinery for absentee
balloting, which will give the men,
bers of our armed forces and mer-
chant marine all over the world an
opportunity to cast their ballots
without time consuming correspond
ends and without waiting for each
separate State to hold its primary
print its ballots and send them out
for voting.
The recent bills proposed by Sen
ators Green and Lucas and by Con-
gresham Worley, S. 1872; H. r.
1882, seem to me to do this job.
They set up proper and efficient
machinery for absentee balloting
These bills propose that blank bal
lots on special paper suitable for air
delivery be sent by the War and
Navy Departments to all the fronts
and camps and stations out in the
neld, well in advance Of election day
| Immediately after primary elec-
tions are held, the names of the
various candidates would be radioed
or wired to the various military
naval and merchant marine units
throughout the world-on the high
seas, on every front and at every
training station. The lists of candi-
dates would then be made available
to the voters, and the ballots would
be: distributed for marking in
secrecy.
But even II the candidates names
had not been made available in an
area in time to allow the ballots to
be- sent back to the United States
the voters could cast their votes by
designating merely the name Of the
party of the candidates they de-
sired to vote for. The voting date
would be fixed in each area in sum-
cient time to. get the ballots back
home before election day, even ii
the actual names of the candidates
had not been received in that par
ticular area. The ballots would be
collected and transmitted back to
the United States by the quickest
method of delivery, for forwarding
to the appropriate state election
officials
Eligibility Left to States.
Each State, under these bills,
would determine for itself whether
or not the voter is qualified to vote
under the laws of his State. Each
State would count the ballots in the
same way in which it counts the
other ballots that are cast in the
State. The sole exceptions would be
those conditions OF registration and
payment of poll tax which could not
be satisfied because Of the absence
of a voter from his State of resi-
dence by reason of the war. Those
conditions were abrogated by the
Congress when it passed the existing
Federal absentee balloting law
public Law 712).
There is nothing in such a pro-
posed statute which violates the
rights of the States. The Federal
Government merely provides quick
machinery for getting the ballots
to the troops and back again. Ger
tainly it does not violate State
rights any more than Public Law
712, which was passed by SUBJ
stantial majority of the Congress in
September, 1912. and which spe-
ci1cally provided that no member
of the armed forces had to register
or pay poll tax in order to vote in
Federal election. 1t is no more
violative of State rights than the
Soldiers and Sailors Civil Relief
Act, which the Congress passed in
October, 1940-more than a year
before the war began.
1t Is true that these bills do not
provide simplified method of vot-
| ing for State and local officials. The
1