Military Votes May Once Again be Delayed

I just received a press release from Senator Cornyn's office that said thousands of ballots may not reach our service men and women in time for them to vote in this years election.

From the press release:

Today, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, joined by Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), John McCain (R-AZ), Rob Portman (R-OH), and Marco Rubio (R-FL) wrote to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to express their concern over the Department of Defense not reducing delays in ballots reaching military voters stationed overseas.

 

“DoD’s failure to fix this longstanding problem means that the blank ballots of thousands of overseas service members, as well as some who have recently returned from overseas, could be currently trapped in an archaic and inefficient mail forwarding system.  These ballots are unlikely to reach these service members until after Election Day has passed."

 

Following ballot delivery problems in 2010, DoD’s own Military Postal Service Agency (MPSA) identified steps to take to streamline the mail redirection process, which were ignored.  Current mail redirection delays range from 14 to 50 days.  The system used by the United States Postal Service, which was identified as a model for DoD, has an average redirection delay of just three days.

Here is the text of the letter sent to Mr Panetta

How is this possible in an age where we can video chat with family members on the other side of the planet? Surely there is a way to make sure our military members can cast their ballots in a timely manner. It seems every election year this comes up.

Here's hoping this can be resolved quickly. In my humble opinion, making sure our service men and women get to vote should be a top priority.