U.S. Aims to Smooth Absentee Voting by Troops [View All]

[UpInArms]

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=5326607

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon, joined by the U.S. Postal Service, is taking steps to make it quicker and more reliable for U.S. troops overseas to cast absentee ballots, after scrapping a plan to let them vote over the Internet, officials said on Wednesday.

The Defense Department and the Postal Service pledged to improve their coordination, and make letters carrying paper absentee ballots a higher priority ahead of the Nov. 2 presidential election.

"Simply put, it's a low-tech solution," Paul Vogel, a Postal Service vice president, told a Pentagon briefing.

Pentagon official Charles Abell said that steps being taken included a redesign of the ballot envelope to guard against confusion over when troops cast a ballot, designed to meet local absentee voting deadlines.

The Pentagon's Military Postal System will ensure each completed ballot gets a proper, legible postmark when it is mailed and gets priority transportation back into the U.S. Postal Service system after being mailed in far-off locales like Iraq and Afghanistan, officials said.

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