[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
MILITARY AND OVERSEAS VOTING IN 2012
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON HOUSE
ADMINISTRATION
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, NOVEMBER 20, 2013
__________
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COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan, Chairman
GREGG HARPER, Mississippi ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania,
PHIL GINGREY, M.D., Georgia Ranking Minority Member
AARON SCHOCK, Illinois ZOE LOFGREN, California
TODD ROKITA, Indiana JUAN VARGAS, California
RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida
Professional Staff
Kelly Craven, Staff Director
Kyle Anderson, Minority Staff Director
MILITARY AND OVERSEAS VOTING IN 2012
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2013
House of Representatives,
Committee on House Administration,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 11:40 a.m., in Room
1310, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Candice S. Miller
[chairman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Miller, Harper, Gingrey, Schock,
Rokita, Brady, and Vargas.
Staff Present: Kelly Craven, Staff Director; Peter
Schalestock, Deputy General Counsel; Yael Barash, Legislative
Clerk; Salley Wood, Communications Director and Deputy Staff
Director; Bob Sensenbrenner, Senior Counsel; Kyle Anderson,
Minority Staff Director; Matt Pinkus, Minority Senior Policy
Advisor; Matt Defreitas, Minority Professional Staff; Khalil
Abboud, Minority Deputy Counsel; Thomas Hicks, Minority Senior
Counsel; Mike Harrison, Minority Chief Counsel; Greg Abbott,
Minority Professional Staff; and Eddie Flaherty, Minority Chief
Clerk.
The Chairman. I would now call to order the Committee on
House Administration hearing on military and overseas voting in
2013. And the hearing record will remain open--or, excuse me,
for the election year of 2012.
The hearing record will remain open for 5 legislative days
so that Members may submit any materials that they wish to be
included therein.
And, again, a quorum is present, so we can proceed.
First of all, I want to thank all my fellow committee
members for being here today to discuss military and overseas
voting.
Every one of the brave men and women who serve our Nation
in uniform across the globe has volunteered for the job. This
is a total volunteer military. And they volunteer because they
believe in our democracy, they believe in freedom, and they are
willing to sacrifice so greatly to ensure that freedom and
liberty are always protected.
And yesterday, as we all know, actually marked 150th
anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. And in closing that
address, President Abraham Lincoln said, ``It is rather for us
to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us,
that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that
cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion,
that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died
in vain, that this Nation, under God, shall have a new birth of
freedom, and that the government of the people, by the people,
for the people shall not perish from the Earth.''
And I mentioned this because the entire concept--I think
this is an interesting thing to note--the entire concept of
absentee voting was actually established at that time by the
States, with cooperation of the Federal Government, to make
certain that Union soldiers would be able to cast ballots in
the Presidential election of 1864. It was the first time our
Nation used absentee balloting.
And I am sure that it was a challenge for the States, it
was a challenge for the Federal Government and the military,
but it got done. And so, certainly, we should make no less an
effort today for our military.
Those who have worn the uniform of our Nation in defense of
freedom and of liberty have made certain that government of the
people, by the people, and for the people has not perished. In
fact, it has thrived. And, today, all in our society,
regardless of their race or sex or creed, are able to fully
participate in our government due in large measure to their
devotion.
And as a representative here of the American people, and
particularly those of us who serve on this committee, we have a
solemn duty to ensure that our troops, those who protect our
freedom, have the ability to vote and to participate in the
democratic process for which they are so willing to risk their
life.
And it is also the solemn responsibility of our witnesses
here today and one that I know they take very, very seriously,
as well. And so, to our witnesses, I certainly want to express
our gratitude to both of you for your service and dedication to
fair and open and free and accurate and inclusive electoral
processes.
And as a former Michigan Secretary of State, I am very
aware of the challenges each State election officer faces when
trying to improve voting access for their military
constituencies who are serving overseas. Myself and Mr. Rokita,
as well, as a former Secretary, very familiar with the
challenges of processing absentee requests and transmitting
ballots overseas and, unfortunately, discarding overseas
ballots that arrived after the State deadlines, as well, which
happens far too often. However, it has been a decade since I
have been the Secretary of State, and we have seen some
fantastic advancements in technology as well as at the State
and Federal level with their procedures.
For the second consecutive Presidential election, we have
seen reports that show that military personnel are registering
to vote at rates 15 to 17 percentage points higher than the
overall civilian population. Similar reports also indicate that
the percentage of military personnel who voted slightly
increased from 2008 to 2012. These figures, I think, tell us
two things: one, that our military personnel want to vote; and,
two, that we are slowly improving their ability to vote.
And with the combined efforts of the Federal Voting
Assistance Program administered by the Department of Defense,
various State initiatives, and Federal legislation, as well,
aimed at supporting both, we have really seen greater
participation amongst military voters.
The Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act, known as
the MOVE Act, was the first major piece of legislation aimed at
facilitating overseas voting since 1986. And it was designed to
advance DOD and State initiatives in three ways: First, it
required that all military overseas ballots be sent at least 45
days before an election. And this was intended to address
ballots being discarded because they were arriving, as we said,
after the State deadlines. Second, it required the Department
of Defense to install voting assistance offices at every
military installation to assist servicemembers with their
registration and absentee requests. And, finally, it provided
grants for States to improve or to adopt programs that
electronically transmitted ballots to our soldiers overseas.
In 2012, 3 years after its adoption, I believe that we have
seen success of the legislation, and we have identified areas,
as well, where there is still room for improvement. The largest
room is always the room for improvement.
For example, since the MOVE Act grant program started,
which has provided, as we say, over 40 States and local
counties with $35 million, we have seen a significant increase
in the number of States that are adopting and testing
procedures that allow servicemembers to access their blank
ballots online, significantly expediting the process of voting
from overseas.
And we have also heard valid concerns about the
legislation's requirement that the DOD outfit every
installation, even the most remote, with voting assistance
representatives--a costly burden that could perhaps be
satisfied with more timely, cost-effective methods like social
media.
So, today, we will hear from our witnesses about their
unique experiences and observations related to the
implementation of the MOVE Act, as well.
Unfortunately, due to a family issue, the Michigan
Secretary of State, Ruth Johnson, who was also going to be one
of our witnesses today, was not able to be here. However, we
have received and reviewed her testimony, which will be--her
full testimony will be submitted into our hearing record.
And I certainly want to acknowledge the great work that she
has done for the State of Michigan. Particularly, I am
impressed with her work as cofounder of Operation Our Troops
Count, which is a program dedicated to ensuring that military
voters overseas have the ability to vote.
And I know that last September both Secretary Johnson and
Secretary Miller participated in a bipartisan delegation to the
Middle East to meet with our troops. I will be interested to
hear a little bit about your experiences there, Secretary.
Again, I just want to thank our witnesses for being here. I
look forward to discussing this very important issue and to
hearing about their observations, both domestically and abroad
as well.
And, at this time, I would like to recognize the ranking
member of the committee, Mr. Brady, for his opening statement.
Mr. Brady. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
And I want to thank the chairman for calling this very
important hearing.
I would also like to congratulate Mr. Boehmer for moving
from active head of the Federal assistance program to
officially becoming the director, I think.
Mr. Boehmer. Thank you.
Mr. Brady. Last week, we celebrated Veterans Day. On that
day, we acknowledged the sacrifice members of our Armed Forces
make to protect our rights. It is only fitting that this
committee do its part to make sure that they are not
sacrificing their own fundamental right, the right to vote.
Some of the important questions continue to be: What role
has technology placed in assisting our military and overseas
voters? How are the Department of Defense and the Federal
Voting Assistance Program working together to ensure that all
Americans are guaranteed the right to vote? What would allow
secretaries of State to streamline this process?
Ensuring the voting rights of all eligible Americans is
this committee's most important obligation. In the next session
of this Congress, I look forward to working with Chairman
Miller as we work to expand and intensify our efforts to uphold
that responsibility. We must begin to address this litany of
bills referred to us that are designed to improve our electoral
process. The Voter Empowerment Act, introduced in the last two
Congresses, addresses everything from the registration process
to modernization to improving the Election Assistance
Commission.
I thank again the chairman for calling this meeting. I look
forward to hearing from our witnesses.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman very much.
Any other opening statements?
Dr. Gingrey.
Mr. Gingrey. Madam Chairman, I want to thank you for
calling this important hearing on military and overseas voting
in the 2012 election and particularly the effectiveness of the
Military and Overseas Voting Empowerment Act, MOVE.
I would also like to welcome our witnesses, Nevada's
Secretary of State, Ross Miller, and Matt Boehmer, as Mr. Brady
said, the recently appointed director of the Federal Voting
Assistance Program.
Congratulations, Mr. Boehmer.
In December of 2009, the MOVE Act was enacted to address
shortcomings in the voting process for military and, of course,
overseas citizens and to enhance the use of available
technology to facilitate their voting. Today's hearing provides
the opportunity to take stock of the successes and issues with
the MOVE Act in the 2012 elections and to determine how we can
better promote voting by servicemembers, their dependents, and,
of course, the lesser number of citizens living overseas.
The right to vote--and Mr. Brady said this so well--the
right to vote is a fundamental freedom. It is imperative that
we ensure that Americans, no matter where they are in the
world, that they have the opportunity to have their voices
heard on Election Day.
And I, too, believe that it is particularly critical to
provide our service men and women with the chance to vote.
These men and women are on the front lines; they are protecting
our freedoms. It is critical to preserving, indeed, our very
way of life. And in return, we owe them. We, indeed, owe them
an effective electoral system that protects their right and
ability to vote in the very system which they are fighting to
safeguard.
Georgia is home, my State, to several military
installations, including Fort Benning, Warner Robins Air Force
Base, Fort Gordon, Dobbins Air Reserve Base in my district, to
just name a few. And, as such, the issue of military voting
hits particularly close to home for me. Those willing to die
for our freedoms deserve the chance to participate in a
democratic republic.
And I am hopeful that this hearing will highlight progress
in giving a voice to military and overseas voters, but also
show us how we can improve the process to make it easier and
more efficient for our citizens across the globe to participate
in our elections. We must ensure that FVAP, States, and
localities are making the most effective use of the limited
resources and that our citizens are aware of the tools and
resources that are available.
And so I am grateful for the chance to hear from our
witnesses today about how we can help FVAP to fulfill its
mission, increase compliance with the MOVE Act without creating
any undue burden on our States and localities, and ensure that
those overseas know that their vote will count.
Thank you, Madam Chairman. I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Dr. Gingrey.
And before I introduce our two witnesses and ask for their
testimony, I would ask unanimous consent to enter into the
record the written testimony from Michigan's Secretary of
State, Ruth Johnson, and the report produced by the Secretaries
of State who visited the Middle East, ``Military and Overseas
Voters 2012: Observations and Recommendations by a Delegation
of State Chief Elections Officers.''
Without objection, entered into the record.
[The statement and report of Ms. Johnson follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Any other opening statements?
I would like now to take some time to introduce more
formally our two witnesses.
First, we are going to hear from Secretary of State Ross
Miller. Secretary Miller, from Nevada, was president of the
National Association of Secretaries of State in 2012. He is a
former criminal prosecutor; elected Nevada's Secretary of State
in 2007. And as the State's chief election officer, his
accomplishments include the multi-jurisdictional Elections
Integrity Task Force and Aurora, Nevada's searchable campaign
finance database. As Secretary, he led the election fraud
investigation into ACORN in Nevada, which led to criminal
charges against the organization. And he also participated in
the FVAP Middle East observation mission in 2012.
And Matt Boehmer recently was selected as permanent
director, as has been mentioned, of the Federal Voting
Assistance Program after serving as an acting director since
January. And in his capacity as the director, he administers
the Federal responsibilities of the Uniformed and Overseas
Citizens Absentee Voting Act. The act covers the voting rights
of uniformed services personnel, their eligible family members,
and all U.S. citizens residing outside of the United States. He
has worked in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for
Personnel and Readiness since 1991. Previously, he was director
of Joint Advertising, Market Research, and Studies and worked
at the Defense Manpower Data Center and the Defense Human
Resource Activity.
And, with that, the chair would now again welcome and
recognize the Secretary of State from Nevada, Ross Miller.
STATEMENTS OF THE HON. ROSS MILLER, SECRETARY OF STATE, NEVADA;
AND MATT BOEHMER, DIRECTOR, FEDERAL VOTING ASSISTANCE PROGRAM
STATEMENT OF THE HON. ROSS MILLER
Mr. Miller. Thank you, Chairman Miller, Ranking Member
Brady, and members of the committee.
For the record, Ross Miller, Nevada Secretary of State.
I want to thank you for the opportunity to be here today to
discuss military and overseas voting procedures and issues and,
in particular, how they are addressed in my home State of
Nevada.
In Nevada, we have a strong military presence, most notably
the Fallon Naval Air Station in the northern part of the State
and Nellis Air Force Base in the south. This is an issue that I
care deeply about since I have been Secretary of State, when I
was elected in 2007. I have made it a significant priority to
try to enhance the system so that we can ensure that the
military ballots are transmitted in a timely manner, and I
think we have made significant progress.
Just to note, in the last 2012 election, Nevada transmitted
6,449 ballots to those covered voters, and 96 percent of those
ballots were returned. Only 265 were not counted for various
reasons.
That said, there is clearly room for improvement. Most
noteworthy, perhaps, is the fact that 42 percent of Nevada's
military and overseas ballots were requested after the 45-day
MOVE Act deadline. That number is clearly too high. It
indicates that many unregistered UOCAVA voters had not
indicated their UOCAVA eligibility prior to that deadline. And
it indicates that many UOCAVA voters who did not request a
ballot for the primary would have automatically--who then would
have automatically received the general election ballot by the
45-day deadline.
Despite the progress that we have made, I want to point out
a significant initiative, and that was an overseas trip that
Chairman Miller referenced. It included a bipartisan delegation
of Secretaries of State--three Republicans, two Democrats. We
traveled to Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain in a trip that was
sponsored by the Department of Defense in which FVAP
accompanied us in an effort to try to come up with some
recommendations and to survey how this process was coming.
Overall, it was very productive. And at the outset, I will
note that the military personnel that are overseeing the
process of ensuring that those ballots get to our troops in
time are doing significant work. They made it clear throughout
process that the transmission of ballots is the highest
priority. As they said over and over again, ballots go before
beans and bullets, in terms of the transportation of assets.
FVAP is also doing an outstanding job. In every base that
we visited and every troop that we talked to, their outreach
efforts were significant. And, clearly, the troops were aware
of the things that they were doing in order to make sure that
they got the ballots.
That said, we do have a few recommendations that I want to
explore with you.
The first is that we heard time and time again that the
preferred method from our troops, in order to receive the
ballots, is that they be able to receive the ballots
electronically and then transmit them.
There is a little bit of a history to this that some of the
Members may remember. Not so long ago, Secretaries of State
across the country changed the legislation in order to allow
for ballots to be transmitted by fax. That wasn't working too
well because in many forward operating bases they don't have
access to fax machines. We then took an additional step and
allowed those ballots to be transmitted by email. That makes it
more convenient, but it still requires them to print out the
ballot and scan it and send it back. And in many of those
instances, they don't have access to a scanner.
And so the recommendation that we came forward with was to
explore the use of a Common Access Card to enable the
electronic transmission of absentee ballots. This is a card
that members of the military are familiar with. It provides a
level of security that, at least in Nevada, we are comfortable
with. And so we moved forward with legislation to allow that to
happen. We can transmit the ballot to them electronically, they
can fill it out electronically, and transmit it. It is a much
more streamlined process, and I think it will make the process
much more efficient for members of the military.
The second recommendation that this bipartisan group came
up with is to enhance efforts to provide individualized content
to absentee voters, direct-to-the-voter assistance.
FVAP currently retains an online portal where they direct,
through wizard technology, the information that any military
overseas voter would need in terms of timelines, basic
procedures in certain States. The feedback that we heard was
that the system is easy to use and has been well received by
absentee voters, but it is nevertheless cumbersome because it
requires an affirmative commitment by that individual voter to
seek out that information.
The recommendation that we have is to seek out ways to
communicate jurisdiction-specific information directly to the
voter in an individualized communication. There are a couple of
barriers that are outlined in our report to potentially doing
that, but we think it should be explored.
And, finally, the final recommendation is to enhance
coordination with the Military Postal Service and State and
local election offices.
The military postal system operates a very sophisticated
system in order to track where ballots are in the process and
transmit that information to the appropriate resources. Funding
was made available in 2010 in order to enhance State systems to
be able to further track those ballots, but the common
complaint that we heard from military personnel is, if they
filled out their forms and they completed the basic
requirements, oftentimes there was no confirmation, and so they
weren't aware whether or not that request had been received in
a timely manner. We think that by moving towards further
communication with the military system and State and local
election officials, that could clearly be enhanced.
And then, additionally, the administration of absentee
ballots could be further enhanced by better integrating the
military postal systems and those of State and local election
offices. The Automated Military Postal System, often referred
to as AMPS, logs valuable data. And if that information were
shared with State and local election offices, it would clearly
help the efficiencies in maintaining the election.
That said, we obviously have provided a copy of the full
report to the committee, and we welcome any questions that you
may have.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. We appreciate that
testimony.
[The statement of Mr. Miller follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. The chair now recognizes Mr. Boehmer for his
testimony.
STATEMENT OF MATT BOEHMER
Mr. Boehmer. Thank you.
Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Brady, and distinguished
members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to
discuss the Federal Voting Assistance Program and its mission
to ensure that uniformed services personnel, their eligible
family members, and our overseas citizens are aware of their
right to vote and have the tools and resources they need to do
so from anywhere in the world.
As Congress and the courts have repeatedly affirmed, voting
is a citizen's most fundamental right. Recognizing military and
overseas voters face unique challenges participating in U.S.
Elections, Congress created a set of protections to make voting
in Federal elections easier and more accessible, which are
codified in the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting
Act. This year, we put forward recommendations to further
strengthen these safeguards for military and overseas voters.
In fulfilling our responsibilities under the law, the
Federal Voting Assistance Program is committed to two voting
assistance tenants: promoting the awareness of the right to
vote and eliminating barriers for those who choose to exercise
that right.
At FVAP, we provide assistance every day. Voters seeking
assistance find a myriad of resources available, including an
expertly staffed call center, well-trained voting assistance
officers, and a robust Web site at fvap.gov, where voters can
find intuitive online tools to help them complete their voter
registration, ballot application forms, as well as the backup
ballot. We also work with State and local election officials,
such as Secretary Miller, ensuring they are aware of the law's
requirements and helping them serve our military and overseas
citizen voters.
In 2012, FVAP made great strides to improve processes,
programs, and our tools. As detailed in our post-election
report to Congress, FVAP launched several new voting
initiatives and executed an aggressive communication and media
engagement plan to promote the awareness of our resources
available to our military and overseas citizen voters.
Our post-election survey data revealed that when
servicemembers use one of the Department's resources, they are
more likely to return their ballot. However, data also show us
that we need to do more to raise awareness of these voting
resources provided by FVAP. It is my personal goal, as the new
director of FVAP, to ensure that we accomplish this. I have
spent my career in the Department of Defense working to
strengthen the all-volunteer force, and I am honored now to
work to enhance the voting ability for those who defend that
very freedom.
For the 2014 election cycle, we are expanding several key
outreach efforts and launching some new initiatives to raise
awareness of our voting resources. Specifically, FVAP is
developing new public service announcements aimed at our
overseas citizens and military spouses. We are providing
customized digital toolkits to our voting assistance officers,
election officials, advocacy organizations, and overseas
companies with a large number of U.S. citizen employees. We are
also targeting our younger population with an integrated
communications plan leveraging social media and mobile devices.
Military members are consistently registered to vote at a
rate equal to or greater than that of the general population.
But registration isn't the end of the story. As you know,
servicemembers are an especially mobile population, and keeping
up-to-date contact information on file at the appropriate
election office is an ongoing challenge.
To overcome this obstacle, FVAP is working on two new
initiatives to automate address updates and inform
servicemembers proactively to notify their election official of
any new address. I look forward to keeping you up to date on
the progress of these efforts throughout 2014.
The pace at FVAP hasn't slowed since the 2012 election, and
we continue to make ongoing improvements to our core services.
This year, we optimized our prescribed absentee voting forms to
improve clarity and usability. We updated the Voting Assistance
Guide and our interactive training modules for use by the
military and Department of State voting assistance officers as
well as our State and local election officials.
Also in 2013, FVAP provided an additional round of research
grants to 11 States and localities. These grants funded two
research areas: the first, the effect of online blank ballot
delivery; and the second explores the efficiencies of providing
a single State-wide point of contact for our military and
overseas voters.
Madam Chairman, members of the committee, thank you for the
opportunity to speak with you today about our efforts in the
2012 election cycle as well as the upcoming 2014 election.
Voting is an individual's choice and personal responsibility,
and FVAP is committed to providing the best voting assistance
possible to those who want to vote, whether they are studying
abroad, fighting downrange, or serving on U.S. soil.
Thank you, and I look forward to our discussion and
answering your questions.
[The statement of Mr. Boehmer follows:]
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The Chairman. Thank you both so very, very much. I
appreciate your testimony.
Secretary, I was trying to take a couple notes when you
were talking, particularly when you mentioned you had 6,429
ballots sent overseas, 96 percent returned, and only 265 not
counted. First of all, hats off. That is a fantastic number. A
lot of States would love to have those kind of percentages. So
that is really a tribute to you and your staff and all of your
election officials through Nevada that you have that kind of
percentage.
Then I was also taking a couple of notes as you were
talking about some specific recommendations, which, as I told
the both of you before we started the hearing, really, that is
really one of the impetuses for this hearing and something that
I want to--and I know all the members of this committee share a
commitment to not just hearing about best practices and various
things that have happened but what else can we do, particularly
as a committee, to assist in every way. So I am always looking
and taking notes when have you have some specific ideas.
One about the Military Postal Service. I guess, for some
reason, I hadn't really thought too much about that before
until you were talking, Secretary, about that the troops
couldn't get confirmation of their ballots once they were put
into the Military Postal Service and how the Military Postal
Service should be able to integrate better with the civilian
postal service.
And since I have both of you two experts right here at this
table talking to one another about how that--could you expand
on that a little bit maybe so that I can understand exactly
what we might be able to do and how the Department of Defense
with their Military Postal Service could help with that?
Mr. Miller. Thank you, Chairman Miller.
Yes, one of the common complaints about the overseas and
absentee voting process was that the tracking and confirmation
mechanisms in place with the local election offices were not
sufficient. Several military members reported some frustration
that they had attempted to communicate with their local
election office but had not received any acknowledgment or
confirmation that their communication had been received--in
other words, that they attempted to register to vote or
requested an absentee ballot and hadn't gotten any confirmation
from the local election officials.
And so the recommendation is to enhance those systems.
Notably, in 2010, FVAP provided grants to a number of States,
Nevada included, in order to enhance our systems so that we
could do just that. Unfortunately, the timeline that was
provided under the grants was very limited. And, in many
instances, the restrictions on the grants did not allow us to
integrate it into our legacy systems. And so many of those
projects and initiatives were not continued.
And that is, in fact, the case in Nevada. We had a superb
system that was put in place for the 2010 election under a very
tight timeline, but because of the limitations with the grant,
we weren't able to expand it to future elections. And that is
unfortunate. We would like to build a system that would
integrate with our system so that we could take advantage of
those services.
The other recommendation with regard to enhancing
coordination with the Military Postal Service and State and
local election officials is that the military has a very
sophisticated system, the AMP System, the Automated Military
Postal System, which logs data as to where those ballots are in
the system. That information to date, to my awareness, is not
shared with local or State election offices. And if we had that
information, that would obviously help us prepare for the
number of ballots that could be headed our way so that we could
more efficiently run the election. And I think, through that
coordination, obviously, we would see significant results.
The Chairman. I appreciate that.
Mr. Boehmer, maybe you could comment on that. I am just
thinking, as the Secretary is talking, perhaps you can't share
that information because you don't want to let everybody know
where everybody is at sometimes, as well. That may be some
reason. I am not sure. What is the reason?
Mr. Boehmer. I can certainly share that information with
the Director of the Military Postal Service Agency.
From what I know, they are actually working on a couple of
new efforts. It is a partnership with the United States Postal
Service as well as with the Department of State. It is called
the MILPARS. And it takes the Postal Address Redirection System
that we all currently use--it is that little yellow sticker
that you get on mail when someone has moved. They are
coordinating that system now for military addresses, both
military post offices and diplomatic post offices.
So I know that MPSA is working on this issue, they are
working it in partnerships. But I certainly can pass that
information on to the Director of MPSA.
The Chairman. Okay. I appreciate that.
Also, Director Boehmer, first of all, the Inspector General
had a somewhat critical report, actually, on the progress of
establishing installation voting assistance offices at all the
individual military facilities. And I am just wondering if you
could talk a little bit about that.
And then I will then ask the Secretary, when had you your
opportunity to be overseas talking to our brave men and women,
what was their thought about actually having a voter assistance
station there? Like, for instance, if you were in Bahrain with
the Fifth Fleet, were they more interested in using this
electronic, as you were mentioning about--I think you called it
the CAC card, that you are using in Nevada, were they more
interested in improving on that?
But, first of all, in regard to the IG report.
Mr. Boehmer. Absolutely.
The installation voter assistance offices were determined
and established before the 2012 election. I think the issue
that the IG faced is they used outdated contact information on
our Web site to try to reach out to the installation voter
assistance offices. When we were made aware of outdated contact
information, we quickly corrected that and then worked with the
installation voter assistance offices on a weekly basis to make
sure that that contact information stayed up to date.
As you are aware, in military environments, personnel
change. There are deployments and transfers and new
assignments. So keeping up-to-date contact information can be a
challenge with military personnel.
But we took that seriously; we addressed the problem
quickly. And we are happy to see that, in the IG's most recent
report, they actually concurred with the services' IG findings
that all of the services' voting assistance activities,
including the installation voter assistance offices, were
compliant.
If I could take a moment, too----
The Chairman. Sure.
Mr. Boehmer [continuing]. I think it is important to
realize that these installation voter assistance offices are
just one of the many resources that our military members have
at their disposal for information.
So if I am a type of person that wants to receive
information in person, I have that as a resource, but I also
have my unit voting assistance officer, who really is in the
front lines of voting assistance. If I am an 18-year-old
military member and very comfortable going online for my voting
assistance, I can use all the tools and resources that we have
at fvap.gov. I mentioned our call center. We are able to send
our servicemembers more than 18 million emails over the course
of the election cycle reminding them of key dates.
So the installation voting assistance offices are just one
of the many resources----
The Chairman. Right.
Mr. Boehmer [continuing]. That our servicemembers have
available to them.
The Chairman. Particularly, as you say, when they are so
mobile, you also mention about PSAs, and I thought, well, how
are you getting a PSA to somebody who that is up in the
mountains of Afghanistan? Unless you have----
Mr. Boehmer. We actually use Armed Forces Network to do
that for us. We had great success using----
The Chairman. Good.
Mr. Boehmer [continuing]. That station, particularly during
the Super Bowl season, which we know that is of particular
interest to military members. So those public service
announcements have been very beneficial to us.
The Chairman. Very good. Good.
Secretary, again, what was your experience as you have
actually talked eyeball-to-eyeball with the customers, if you
will, the users of these systems? And what was their thought
about having something there physically or being able to use
electronically to a greater degree?
Mr. Miller. Thank you, Chairman Miller.
The issue of installation voting assistance office outreach
was a significant issue for this delegation because it had been
the subject of recent scrutiny. And during our interaction with
military personnel, there was a general lack of awareness of
the presence of specific voter assistance offices at any given
installation.
But, notably, there was also specific feedback given to us
that that wasn't the most effective use of resources. You have
to remember that many of the military men and women that are
serving over there are 18 to 24 years old; they are more
accustomed to using technology. It is also the demographic that
is least likely to become politically engaged.
The feedback that we heard was that these voting
installation offices weren't convenient for them and it is not
the means that they wanted to be outreached to. And so, again,
their preference was to be able to register to vote online to
the extent possible and for those ballots to be able to be
transmitted to them electronically, along with being able to
transmit it back to the local election offices electronically.
And so, in our report, we suggested that if that program is
to be continued that there be some examination as to the
efficacy of maintaining brick-and-mortar installation offices
at any facility.
The Chairman. Well, I appreciate that.
The chair recognizes the ranking member.
Mr. Brady. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
I guess it must be tough because general elections are
always the same date; primaries, State by State, are different,
and the rules are different. And, you know, we have our men and
women over there, you know, in harm's way, and I am sure that
they have a lot and their commanders have a lot more on their
mind than who they are voting for or not voting for. But it
still is their right. I mean, they are fighting for our rights,
and I want to make sure and hope to make sure--I know that you
have been. I was reading over your statements and what both of
you are doing to make sure that we assure that right.
How do we help you? Do we need to do something State by
State, because every State is different? Do we need to do
something uniformly to be able to make that easier?
And we talked about electronic, maybe the Internet voting.
I know there is a so-called pilot program that--I mean, it
isn't like they are living--or they are not in town that day or
they are not feeling well or they are 60 years old. I mean, we
know where they are at and we know what they are doing. And I
just think that maybe there should be some kind of--I don't
like to use the word ``exception,'' but there should be some
type of something that we could do, you know, to make sure that
they have that right and it is available for them. Whether they
choose to use it or not, you know, that is another issue
completely but not under our control, nor your control.
You are right at the front lines with this here, State-wide
and national, you know. Anything we can do to make sure that we
can give them every ability, if it needs to be an ability? I
mean, like you mentioned, they are all younger. They are not my
age, that I have to learn a little bit and get my 7-year-old
grandson to get me out when I am stuck with the--I have a good
story to tell you, but that is for another day--but when I am
stuck on the computer.
But is there something we could do to make it more
available and more easier and make it--because you hear the
horror stories, you know, about that.
I mean, either one of you, or both.
Mr. Miller. Thank you, Ranking Member Brady.
One, I would note that you have helped significantly.
Obviously, the passage of the MOVE Act was the biggest
barrier--addressed the biggest barrier that military and
overseas voters faced, which was the timely delivery of the
ballots.
The delegation that I went on in the Middle East was the
second such delegation of Secretaries of State. There was one
in 2008, and that was their primary recommendation. What was
it? The troops reported that even though they had requested
ballots in a timely manner, they weren't transmitted in a
timely manner in order for them to get the ballots back to
them.
And so we have made significant enhancements. The
recommendations that we have provided in the report, I
personally believe, would be of great value and should be
further explored.
In 2008, the troops indicated, as they did during this
delegation's tour, that their preferred method of voting is
through an electronic transmission of ballot delivery. We have
made specific recommendations as to how that could happen.
The other significant recommendation, I think, that is
going to make it easier for members of the military and
overseas voters to vote is, again, trying to look at ways where
we could provide more individualized content to absentee voters
about the rules and process that they need to follow in order
to get their ballots in a timely manner.
Again, I think the FVAP portal is outstanding. It provides
wizard technology where, if you walk through, it will guide you
State by State, help select your jurisdiction and your
residency, and provide you with the timelines that are
necessary and how you can request that ballot, how to register
to vote, et cetera.
But what we heard from troops is they are busy. Oftentimes,
this isn't the highest priority for them. The limited free time
that they have, they want to be on Facebook, Skyping with their
family. And this is still a cumbersome process.
There are, obviously, agencies within the Federal
Government that know the residencies of these troops. If we
were able to share that information with State and local
election officials, I can guarantee that, as big of a priority
as it is for chief elections officers across this country, we
would then be able to provide individualized content that was
tailored for that individual so that they wouldn't have to go
through this cumbersome wizard tech process in order to figure
out the rules and regulations.
We could spell it out for them. Say, it looks like you live
in Nevada, and in Nevada we have online voter registration. And
if you go to this direct Web site, you can not only register to
vote but you can request your ballot and ship it back to us
immediately.
If we offered that, I think it would remove one of the
significant barriers there appear to be for military and
overseas voters.
Mr. Boehmer. Sir, thank you.
I also agree with Secretary Miller that you have already
done a lot. We certainly have made great strides, and, as
Secretary Miller said, we still have a lot more things that we
can do.
The issue that we are working on are two of the big issues
that face our voters as they navigate through the absentee
voting process, and that is the issue of time and then
complexity. You know, each State, different rules. Our voters,
you know, they have to be able to figure that out.
Secretary Miller mentioned, if we knew which jurisdiction
our military members were actually voting in, we could actually
target communications. And we all know, in the marketing world,
if you are able to target your customer, you are able to
deliver better information to them.
The problem is the Department of Defense doesn't have that
information. So I agree, if we could find that information and
bring that in, it would be a resource that not only the States
could use but that the Department of Defense could use, as
well.
Elections are complex; they are certainly not impossible.
And, as Secretary Miller said, our voters are young, they are
inexperienced. They do want to use online technology. And we
are lucky, with our grant program, to have been able to offer
the States grants for online blank ballot delivery. And I think
that, working with the States and seeing some of the results
over the 5-year grant period, we should be able to make some
really good recommendations.
So thank you.
Mr. Brady. Thank you.
So what I understand is probably education, communication,
you know, and some information that they may be able to
receive, that we can make it easier for them to know that--you
know, as you said, and I can certainly imagine, voting for
somebody is not the most priority that is on their mind when
they have a minute or 2 from not being out in the front lines
out there.
But to let them know, I guess--again, the problem is the
State-wide--I mean, every State is a different timeframe. I may
be sitting next to a friend of mine and he may have missed his
timeframe and I may not. And, I mean, so I guess the
information is, like, most important too.
When a ballot is received and the proper ID or whatever,
proper box is not checked off, that ballot just gets tossed
away? There is no provisional? There is no timeframe where we
can allow them to fix it or go back to it? If I submit an
absentee ballot and I don't have the proper ID and then
somebody rules that--probably State-wide, I guess--rules that
invalid, there is no provisional or anything? We have
provisionals in the State of Pennsylvania. There is no
provisional?
Again, I hate to--if somebody goes through that process,
and they go through and they vote at the right and proper time,
or maybe they miss a day or 2 or don't check a proper box, I
would be a little disturbed knowing I am over here fighting for
somebody, you know, protecting their rights, and they are not
protecting my rights because I was a day or 2 late or I didn't
put on that my ID is who I am, it is written here. And, God
forbid, if I come home disabled or not come home at all, they
will know my ID then.
What happens with that? I mean, is there anything we could
do to provisionally help them?
Because I get that. I get people that have been over in
harm's way and come back and said that they were denied to
vote, for me specifically, because they didn't check a box, you
know. And whether they wanted to vote for me or not, I think we
should make sure that that can happen for them.
Mr. Miller. Thank you, Ranking Member Brady. I think that
is an issue that every State is exploring. And every State,
obviously, has different standards in terms of the procedures
that must be followed in order for that ballot to be counted.
In Nevada, we do have some rejection of the ballots. I
discussed it in my testimony. Ninety-six percent of the ballots
were, in fact, counted. Many of the ones that were not counted
were not received in time. So they have to be received by
Election Day in order to be counted. There were some instances
of ballots that were not counted because they weren't signed on
the ballot where you require a signature in order to verify the
identity of the voter that is attempting to cast ballots; and
some for a handful of other reasons.
You know, I think the issue could certainly be explored, to
your point, about providing additional leeway or flexibility.
Because members of the military and overseas voters often don't
have the time or the resources to be able to come in as a voter
in State would be able to do and correct a ballot that may be
cast provisionally.
Mr. Brady. Your absentee ballots in the State of Nevada
have to be in on Election Day?
Mr. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Brady. What happens if they came in the next day or 2?
I mean, and, again, they did it properly, they did it at the
right time, they met the deadline when they had to sent it out.
Through no fault of their own, again.
If it comes, like--Election Days are Tuesdays--if it comes
on Wednesday or Thursday, there is nothing you could do to be
helpful for somebody that is overseas? Not somebody that is at
another location and just didn't feel like being home that day.
Mr. Miller. Ranking Member Brady, I will double-check the
statute, but my recollection is it has to actually be received
by Election Day in order to be counted.
Mr. Brady. Because in Pennsylvania our ballots, absentee
ballots, come in days later, because they are collected at the
polling place and they come in later or they are counted later
or whatever.
And I am not saying that Nevada should be different. I am
just saying that, anything we could do to enhance it? If
somebody does the right and proper things, and then the mail or
whatever--maybe they didn't pick up the mail on Tuesday, maybe
they pick it up on Thursday, and they are 2 days late, I just
think it is a shame to have them, the men and women over there
fighting for us, not to be able to have their vote counted.
But I appreciate both of you for coming, and I appreciate
your participation in making this a better place for them.
Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Chairman. Thank you. I thank the gentleman.
And the chair now recognizes the gentleman from Georgia,
Dr. Gingrey.
Mr. Gingrey. Madam Chairman, thank you.
Representative Brady certainly had some very good
questions. In my hometown of Marietta, Georgia, we just had
mayoral and city council elections. And one of the city council
members, who is a good friend of mine that I served on the
school board with way back when I started into politics, lost
by one vote. And she was an incumbent and had served on the
school board and city council. And they did a recount, and she
still lost by one vote. So it is over. So, I mean, one vote
counts.
And when my good friend, Mr. Brady, Representative Brady,
said, you know, especially these members of the military, they
have a provisional ballot that doesn't get counted, that that
is not right. And their vote I won't say is more important than
anybody else's vote, but, as he pointed out, they are at the
tip of the spear. They give the rest of us the opportunity to
have the right to vote.
And I am just sitting here thinking, we marked up and
passed H. Res. 77. Maybe in the competition one of these young
people, with developing apps, can help you guys, can figure
out--and that will be the prize winner.
But, obviously, you are doing a great job, but, you know,
there are things that need to be improved, as you have alleged
and admitted to. And, certainly, we will continue to work on
that.
Well, let me ask a couple of questions. Secretary Miller,
first I will ask you. Local jurisdictions may not be as
familiar with the MOVE Act requirements, are less able to keep
up with changing regulations, but are simultaneously tasked
with running elections. Despite this, Secretaries of State are
legally responsible for compliance with election law, causing
some concern that their offices may be the target of a DOJ
enforcement action.
How can we better educate local jurisdictions about
compliance? And what can State officials like yourself do both
to better educate local jurisdictions like the cities and the
counties and to protect themselves from costly legal disputes?
Mr. Miller. Thank you, Dr. Gingrey. Again, Secretary of
State Ross Miller from Nevada.
You know, that may have been a more significant issue when
the MOVE Act was first implemented. Speaking only from my
perspective in Nevada, the local election officials are acutely
aware of those deadlines. They work very closely with our
office to ensure that those ballots are timely transmitted in
time for the 45-day deadline and are fully aware of the fact
that, should we fail to meet that deadline, the DOJ would come
in with a fairly significant hammer.
We had one local jurisdiction in the 2010 election that had
an issue with their printer, and they had some 30-some ballots
that were not transmitted within that 45-day deadline. We
worked aggressively to make sure that all of those voters did,
in fact, receive their ballots and, I think, resolved the
situation to the Department of Justice's satisfaction.
The issue that you pointed to, I think, is a good one, that
on paper it seems like a good idea to hold the chief elections
officer responsible for compliance with the MOVE Act, but the
bottom line is that these local election officers don't work
for the Secretary of State, in most instances. And so, while we
can work to encourage them to try to meet the deadline, there
really isn't much of a hammer.
I don't think that any of those local election offices, at
least in Nevada, are deliberately ignoring those timelines.
Sometimes we have court challenges, we have other issues that
come up that prevent us from being able to timely transmit
those ballots. But it is a high priority, and it is Federal
law. And I think, at this point, at least speaking from Nevada,
we have done an outstanding job. We didn't have any issues in
2012.
Mr. Gingrey. Oh, your numbers are fantastic.
Let me go to Director Boehmer.
An April 2013 report by the Department of Defense Inspector
General, IG, noted that FVAP had data on its activities but
little data on the effects of those activities. The IG
recommended that FVAP develop and track metrics of the
effectiveness of its programs.
What progress has been made on developing these metrics,
and when do you expect them to be implemented?
Mr. Boehmer. Sir, thanks for the question.
As you noted, the IG did make a recommendation for us to
enhance our current metrics as well as develop new ones to show
program effectiveness.
As an assistance agency, we want to make sure that we are
collecting the appropriate metrics and that FVAP is accountable
under those metrics for the activities that we are actually
responsible for. In order to help us with that, we actually
engaged with a federally funded research and development center
to take a look at what our responsibilities are and what are
the appropriate metrics that would help with looking at
effectiveness.
We are currently right in the middle of that effort now. I
am looking at seeing preliminary results from their work in the
beginning of 2014, and we are hoping that we can have something
to share with the Hill and your staff late spring.
Mr. Gingrey. Madam Chairman, you have been very generous
with the gavel. Can I go back to Secretary Miller for one
last----
The Chairman. Sure.
Mr. Gingrey. Thank you.
Secretary Miller, you mentioned in your testimony that your
office has taken advantage of legislation that will allow
military and overseas voters to use electronic and digital
signatures on election documents and to request, mark, and
deliver a ballot to their county without the need of a printer
or a scanner.
Can you tell us more about the system you are working on to
allow voters to mark and return ballots using this electronic
signature method? And do you see, in particular, any security
or voter integrity risk associated with the move in that
direction?
Mr. Miller. Thank you again, Dr. Gingrey.
You know, our report when we returned clearly noted, again,
that the preferred method of voting was the electronic
transmission of the ballot. And that was the same feedback that
the 2008 delegation had received.
One of the issues that we explored in some depth in order
to get around some of those security concerns is that the
members of the military use a Common Access Card. And that card
is unique to each individual that is within the military. They
cannot log on to their system, as I understand it, without the
use of that card, which further requires a PIN number to be
entered. And so there is a high level of authentication in
terms of who is on the other end of that computer terminal.
And so, when I returned from this delegation tour, we went
the next legislative session and changed the statutes to allow
for the electronic transmission--not only the electronic
transmission of the ballot, but for them to be able to fill out
that ballot electronically and retransmit it to the local
election officials using that Common Access Card.
It is a process that the members of the military are very
familiar with. Anytime they need to sign a document, they do so
by attaching a digital signature through that system. In fact,
as I understand it, they fill out their Federal tax forms using
that same system, attaching that digital signature. The emails
are encrypted. And so it clearly meets military standards for
the safeguards that are in place.
And so that is an issue that we explored, and we are, in
fact, implementing it for the 2014 election. And so the way
that all will work is, any member of the military or overseas
voter would be able to register online to vote, because we are
an online voter registration State. We will authenticate the
identity of that voter by checking their driver's license
number, the last four of their Social Security number, and
their date of birth, and register them to vote.
Then, moving through the next part of that process, we
would send them their individualized ballot according to their
precinct. They would be able to fill that out. It would then
generate a PDF, which is the exact same way that the ballots
were previously transmitted, encrypt it, and send it to the
local election official, where they could then further
authenticate the identity of that ballot and, should any
questions arise, obviously, take the appropriate recourse.
Mr. Gingrey. All right. Thank you both very much.
The Chairman. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from
California, Mr. Vargas.
Mr. Vargas. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I appreciate
it.
I do want to follow some of the questions. First of all,
thank you again for being here. Thank you for the work that you
did. And I was happy to see that you are attempting to reduce
the number of ballots that haven't been counted.
I do have to say that I am--I was in politics, and I left
politics for a while, went back to private practice. And then I
ran for the State Senate, and I won by a whopping 22 votes.
However, at the end of the counting of the votes, I had only
won by 12. What had happened was that there was a process that
wasn't followed in one of the counties whereby about 12,000
ballots were appropriately brought to the post office but the
post office didn't deliver them to the registrar of voters. So
they just sat on the deck there of the post office, 12,000 of
them, about 500 in my particular area, the way the thing was
set up.
And I had already won, I had already won by 12 votes, but
my opponent went to court to say that those 12,000, and in
particular those 500, should be counted. And I agreed with
that. I agreed. I thought, you know, I had read a lot of the
letters that had been sent. There were a number of military
personnel who said, ``That is not fair. I did what I was
supposed to do. I voted. I took my ballot down to the post
office on time. They forgot to deliver it to the registrar of
voters.''
And so I didn't challenge that. I thought, well, they are
right, you know? If I lose, I lose. I mean, I have already won,
but, you know, it is the right thing to do. I had lost in that
county, so I thought I was going to lose. But, you know, I
think it is the right thing to do, and God always helps out
those who try to do the right thing. But, anyway, so I just
thought, I will do it. Turns out, I got another 10 votes out of
it, so I won with a whopping--I almost doubled my victory. I
always like to say I won by double digits. It was only 22
votes.
But I do think that if, you know, there is some
technicality like that, especially service personnel and our
military, that we ought to bend over backwards to make sure
that those votes are counted. I don't think that that is fair
at all. Again, I have had that personal experience, and I just
think you have to count those votes.
You know, I have been to Afghanistan, too, also, to see how
these poor guys and gals are out there defending our liberties,
our freedoms. And for some technicality for their vote not to
be counted, like that post office that, you know, the delivery
guy just forget to take it to the registrar--they always had
done it every year. The guy just forgot to do it, left it out
there on the dock.
If you could comment on that?
Mr. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Vargas. Again, Ross Miller,
Secretary of State, for the record.
I don't know when this occurred. But what I can tell you,
at least from the observations of the delegation, was that this
is the highest priority for the military in order to be able to
transmit these ballots. I think that the military clearly
recognized, along with local and State election officials, that
we had a problem and that, you know, many of these ballots that
had been cast by our military and overseas voters weren't
transmitted in time. And so they worked very aggressively to
address that and, I think, have done an outstanding job.
In fact, the U.S. Central Command issued a regulation,
Regulation 2564, that mandates that absentee ballots shall be
afforded the most expeditious handling and transmission
possible. As I stated, they commonly refer to this as the fact
that ballots go before beans and bullets in the priority of
transportation of assets, that they walked us through ad
nauseam the process of the military postal system. I saw more
about the postal system than I think I wanted to see in tour
after tour. And pointed out that, with every ballot, the
military postal system applies an express mail service, Label
11-DOD, to each ballot from an overseas servicemember. And so
what that means is that that is the highest priority within the
postal system, is getting those ballots back in time so that
the local election offices can count those.
I don't think that was in place before the previous
delegation tour and, clearly, in prior elections when we
realized that we may have a problem with the timely delivery of
ballots. But I think they have largely corrected it, or at
least that is the hope.
Mr. Vargas. Okay. Great.
And I look forward to that app. I think that is a good
idea, Doctor, that these students come up with an app so we can
have the technology.
So thank you.
Thanks again, Madam Chair.
The Chairman. Thank you. We are going to start calling you
``Landslide Vargas'' over there. But that is interesting,
because the Senate districts in California are larger than the
congressional districts, so to win by 22 votes even after that,
that is----
Mr. Brady. Double digits.
The Chairman. Double digits. That is something.
The chair now recognizes Representative Rokita from
Indiana, former Secretary of State.
Mr. Rokita. I thank the chair.
And I thank the witnesses for their testimony here today.
Mr. Boehmer--is that how you pronounce it?
Mr. Boehmer. Yes.
Mr. Rokita. I appreciate your leadership over at what we
lovingly call FVAP. And thank you for you and your whole team's
continued work. I haven't had a chance to meet or work with
staff members and leaders of any agency here, yet in Congress,
that I think met the level of professionalism and
sophistication and care for what their job was, than I did when
I got to work as former Secretary of State with FVAP. So thank
you.
Secretary Miller, thank you for being here, as well. It is
good to see you. You remind me of older and simpler times, but
definitely good times.
Very interested to learn a couple things from you. How many
other States accept the Common Access Card method of doing
things? Do you happen to know? I don't mean to put you on the
spot, but you are the NASS president, and with that paycheck
comes extreme responsibility, sir, to know all these things.
Mr. Miller. Thank you, Congressman Rokita, for indeed
putting me on the spot as the former NASS president.
Mr. Rokita. I would be interested to know. Yes.
Mr. Miller. And it is a pleasure to have a question from my
former mentor, a fine mentor at the National Secretaries of
State Association.
I can't give you the specific figures as to how many States
employ the use of the Common Access Card. I don't think many
do. But there are a couple of States that will at least allow
for the electronic transmission of the ballots back to the
election offices.
Notably, Montana has a system in place that is similar to
Nevada's. That is where we copied our legislation from, along
with Washington. And my understanding is that both of those
States have seen enormous success. They have seen higher
participation rates among the members of the military as a
result of that.
I know that there are some vendors in the room today, in
fact, that have this technology and have really worked to try
to capitalize on marketing that towards other offices, should
they want to take advantage of it.
Mr. Rokita. Thank you, Ross.
Thinking back to our time together and remembering things I
was concerned about--and this is new information to me, but I
am very interested in it and intrigued by it--what are the
distractions from this process? What would a hardliner like
Rokita have thought, back when he was Secretary of State, about
the Common Access Card and its vulnerabilities? Or would I have
loved it?
Mr. Miller. Well, that is another difficult question,
Congressman Rokita, as to what you would have thought of it.
But I think----
Mr. Rokita. It sounds great----
Mr. Miller [continuing]. Some of the reservations that were
pointed out in 2008, along with 2012, is that with what is
commonly referred to as Internet voting, there would be all
kinds of problems with security. And I think maybe many
Secretaries of State across the country would acknowledge that.
The use of the Common Access Card, I think, largely
resolves a lot of the concerns that people may have with it,
because you can definitively identify the other individual on
the other end of the terminal.
Mr. Rokita. Yes.
Mr. Miller. Clearly, there may be some concerns about how
appropriately the email is encrypted when it goes back to the
election office so that it couldn't be grabbed out there in
cyberspace and in any way manipulated and have somebody----
Mr. Rokita. You are dangerously walking close to another
hearing, so--the subject matter of another hearing.
Mr. Miller. But, you know, this is a system that is in
place in the military. It clearly meets their needs where they
deal with issues of high-level national security, and so I
think it should be explored.
Clearly, in Nevada, we are comfortable with it. Our
legislation, despite the fight we are a significant
battleground State, it passed in an overwhelmingly bipartisan
fashion when we walked through the security protocols with the
transmission of the ballots.
Mr. Rokita. That is great to hear. Thank you for your
leadership at NASS, too.
By the way, I was able to weasel myself onto that first
trip in 2008, and it was an amazing trip. A lot of what you
described in your report was similar to what we found, as your
testimony indicates.
The priority, as I remember it--and correct me if I am
wrong--was that the ballots came only second to, unfortunately,
bodies. It was bodies first, then ballots. That is what we were
told, and that is what we saw, fortunately and unfortunately.
Do you have any different recollection or different
observation than that?
Mr. Miller. I don't. That may very well be the case. I know
through their regulation it says it is given the highest
priority, but there may well be a legitimate and understandable
exception for----
Mr. Rokita. Absolutely.
Mr. Miller [continuing]. The transmission of bodies back to
the U.S.
Mr. Rokita. Here is--and I would hope that the Chairman
would just give me a little bit of time with the gavel here.
The Chairman. Certainly.
Mr. Rokita. A question for both of you, and then I will be
quiet.
I don't remember the answer to this or if there is an
answer to this, but let's assume there was a servicemember in
Indiana, lived in Indiana his or her whole life. At the age of
18, enlisted. Trained, let's say, in Georgia. Then may have,
right before deployment, gone to Nevada, to one of your bases.
Where is this person supposed to vote?
Mr. Miller. Thank you. I will take a stab at this, although
it is not my area of expertise. And I think it may depend upon
Federal law. But my understanding is that that voter can
designate the residency of their choice. And so, if they wanted
to, they could designate that their residency is in Nevada.
By default, as I understand it, their residency is their
last residence as of their deployment date. And this ties in to
some of the complexities with local and State election offices
being able to identify that voter's residence so that we could
send that individualized communication.
But one of the things that I still do not understand, in
terms of those barriers, is that somewhere in the Federal
Government, you have to know where our troops live. Somebody
knows. And if they have that information, why can't they share
it with FVAP and the local and State election offices so that
we would be able to provide that communication so that they
wouldn't be left to guess as to which jurisdiction they live in
and what those rules and procedures are.
Mr. Rokita. That is an excellent assignment, I think,
perhaps, for us. So thank you for that.
Matt.
Mr. Boehmer. Before I start answering your question, thank
you very much for the compliment to the FVAP staff. I am
honored to be in this position but more honored to work with a
highly dedicated team of experts and professionals who do
nothing but all day make sure that our military members, their
families, and overseas citizens do have the voting assistance
that they need and deserve. So thank you, sir, for that
recognition.
Where a military member votes is incredibly complex. And as
we talk about one of the challenges even for a servicemember,
him or herself, that could be a question that they ask. On our
Web site, we do have some guidance to them. And it certainly
can be their legal residence. For some who are young, it could
be their home of record. As you know----
Mr. Rokita. Do States determine this still, by and large?
Or is there a Federal statute that----
Mr. Boehmer. Actually, the military member would determine
that. They can actually change their legal residence.
So, as you can tell, because this is a very mobile
population, changing addresses is something that is complex.
And it is something that we try to help our military members
and their families with, again, providing them with that
information and awareness about what their legal State of
residence could be and then asking them to work with their JAG
officers, their legal counsel in their units to help them
determine what that residence actually is.
So we will give them some guidance and some advice, but it
is almost that that bottom-line answer is: Consult your legal
person in your unit; they should be able to help you figure
this out.
Mr. Rokita. I thank the Chair for her indulgence.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
And I certainly just want to thank--does the ranking member
have any further questions? No? Okay.
I just want to thank our witnesses again, both of you, for
coming so very, very much. It has been, I think, a very good
hearing. I know I have taken a couple of notes, talking to my
staff here in the back, that we want to take a look at, in
particular, this Military Postal Service. And, particularly,
Mr. Vargas talking about all the mail left out on the tarmac
there, so to speak, of the postal service, and what we can do
to coordinate that better. That is a great suggestion,
something we maybe can take a look at, as well.
And I also have been, just as Mr. Rokita--I mean, I
listened to this CAC card and thought, well, I don't know how
that would work, but yet it sounds like something that has
worked, that your State legislature has agreed to in a
bipartisan way. And so it is something that really, I think,
merits looking into, as well, and is very interesting, as well.
But I, again, just want to thank you all very much. And I
hope you continue to look at this committee as a resource both
for FVAP and NASS, as well. And I know you have the executive
director of NASS that is in the audience here today, as well,
who does a remarkable job, Leslie Reynolds.
And this committee really wants to work very closely with
the Secretaries and all of our customers, particularly those in
the military, to make sure that we do everything that we
possibly can to expedite their voting rights and assistance in
however we can. We are always looking for input and
suggestions, comments on how we can better that process,
certainly.
So thank you very much for your attendance today. Look
forward to working with you.
The committee now stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:50 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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