Nonmail sending of ballots no big hit
Posted on Sunday, August 31, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/235866/
Arkansas’ county clerks aren’t showing much interest so far in joining a new voluntary federal program to use electronics to help make sure that Arkansans abroad get to vote in the state’s elections.
As of Friday, only eight of the 75 clerks had signed up.
Clerks may sign up at any time before they begin to send ballots to absentee voters, the secretary of state’s office said.
Clerks participating like the idea of doing more to make sure soldiers abroad get to vote, but those reluctant to join are concerned about whether the ballots will be secure, and some wonder whether the program will be any more effective than methods already in use.
Under this program, Arkansas residents who are abroad may fill out federal voter-registration and absentee-ballot applications online, have their applications electronically transmitted to their county clerks and have blank ballots electronically transmitted to them.
This could benefit Arkansans who are members of the military, their dependents abroad (if they are Arkansas residents ) and other Arkansas residents who are abroad.
Absentee ballots already can go by mail to Arkansans out of the country.
The participating counties are Ashley, Bradley, Conway, Dallas, Logan, Mississippi, Perry and Pulaski, according to Natasha Naragon, a spokesman for Secretary of State Charlie Daniels.
“We certainly do hope we will receive confirmation that more counties will be participating in this additional effort to ensure that our overseas and military voters have every opportunity to vote,” she said.
About 3, 000 Arkansas National Guardsmen are serving overseas, most of them in Iraq with the 39 th Infantry Brigade, said Chris Heathscott, a spokesman for the Guard.
Last year, the Legislature enacted a law intended to give election officials more time to prepare and print absentee ballots and extend the turnaround time for ballots sent from overseas. Under Act 1049 of 2007, county election commissions are required to deliver absentee ballots to the clerk for mailing 35 days before an election, up from 25 days. The deadline is Sept. 30.
The general election will be Nov. 4.
State law leaves 10 days after the election to count them.
Daniels informed county election officials in an Aug. 14 memo about the Federal Voting Assistance Program’s so-called automated voter registration / ballot delivery tool.
Federal officials originally planned to make the system available last December, but its launch was delayed until July 21 because the system was being tested using U. S. Department of Defense standards for securing messaging systems, said Lt. Col. Les’ A. Melnyk, a spokesman for the Department of Defense.
The system uses a multilayered approach to security to ensure that the voters’ personal information is not viewed by anyone except the intended recipient, he said.
As the state’s chief election officer, Daniels said it’s his obligation to ensure that all eligible citizens are given the opportunity to vote.
“Too often those citizens who are overseas and those who are risking their lives in defense of our nation are disenfranchised because of the time it takes to transmit applications and ballots from voters’ home counties to their overseas location,” said Daniels, who served four years in the Air Force and 15 in the Air Force Reserve.
He said the tool will provide “an electronic alternative to the by-mail process, designed to expedite the absentee-voting process and facilitate communication between local election offices and voters.”
Daniels said he strongly encourages county election officials to participate. “As a fellow election official, I know that you would agree that it is unacceptable to have even one overseas voter disenfranchised,” he wrote in his memo to county election officials.
According to the Federal Voting Assistance Program, overseas citizens in participating counties will submit the voter-registration and absentee-ballot request form to their local election official through a secure server and can receive their blank ballot through the server.
In his successful 2006 reelection bid against Republican challenger Jim Lagrone, Daniels drew sharp criticism that he didn’t do enough to make sure soldiers’ votes were counted, a charge he adamantly disputed. BALLOT SECURITY A CONCERN
Sebastian County Clerk Doris Tate said her office is not going to participate in the fledgling program for the Nov. 4 election.
“Our biggest concern is ballot security,” she said. “I am very concerned about who is going to get [the ballot ]. I feel like elections are the most important thing I am taking care of.”
Tate said her office might participate in the program in the future.
She said she doesn’t believe that the county “has a big problem” receiving ballots from military members too late to legally count them. Her office mails out absentee ballots to military members before it mails out the other absentee ballots, she said.
Washington County Clerk Karen Pritchard recalled that she signed up for her county to participate in a pilot program for an Internet voting system for overseas U. S. citizens in 2004 before the Pentagon canceled that project.
“With this latest initiative, I thought it might be better to see if it’s going to work first,” she said.
Several counties in seven states signed up in that 2004 project, called the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment, or SERVE. Arkansas counties were Benton, Boone, Craighead, Crawford, Faulkner, Jefferson, Pulaski and Washington.
The Pentagon scrapped the project because of concerns about its security after experts said the system was too vulnerable.
Pritchard said she wants to make sure no voter fraud is committed in the latest program before she considers participating in it.
“I just don’t know how that is going to work in making sure somebody doesn’t vote twice,” she said. “In a presidential election year, you just can’t take any chances on the validity of your election.”
Pritchard said Washington County has never had a problem getting the ballots of military members and other overseas citizens in time to be counted.
Melnyk, the Defense Department spokesman, said the PDF, or portable document format, of the voted ballot, once received and printed by the voter through the secure server under the new program, must be returned via regular mail to the appropriate county clerk in Arkansas.
The voted ballot will include the voter’s signature, which can be compared with the signature the county has on file from the voter’s registration / absentee ballot request, he said.
Phillip Fletcher, voter registrar supervisor in the Pulaski County clerk’s office, said the county is going to participate for the sake of the soldiers: “Anything for those guys.”
Fletcher served in the Army in Iraq and Korea.
He said the county has received about 500 absentee-ballot requests from overseas citizens, including more than 360 from military members.
The Federal Voting Assistance Program has told the secretary of state’s office that it will set up user accounts for counties wishing to participate as it receives confirmation from the counties, Naragon said.
So far, some county election officers in Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and West Virginia are able to accept the voter-registration and absentee-ballot request form and / or provide the blank ballots via the secure server, said Melnyk. ARKANSAS BRIGADE’S EFFORTS
Heathscott, a spokesman for the 39 th Infantry Brigade, said its voting-assistance officer worked with each battalion to place the ballot in the hands of the soldiers at Camp Shelby, Miss., then assured the ballots got back to Arkansas for the presidential primary in February.
More than 2, 000 of the 3, 000-plus troops sought ballots, he said.
“That process was very challenging, to say the least, yet we were very successful at getting the soldiers that wanted to vote a chance to vote,” he said.
“Today, we find ourselves in a much different environment and the brigade is stretched to the wind with battalions in Taji, Tallil, Al Asad, Baghdad and the surrounding areas,” Heathscott said.
Naragon said the secretary of state’s office has forwarded hundreds of mailing addresses for soldiers, who previously received their ballots at Camp Shelby, to the appropriate county clerk.
How well Arkansas’ local officials process and count absentee ballots from overseas has been unclear in federal reports on the 2004 and 2006 general elections because the reports have been incomplete.
Before the 2004 presidential election, the printing of Arkansas ballots by the counties was delayed by order of the state Supreme Court from Sept. 23-Oct. 1 while the high court was deciding a lawsuit over whether the name of presidential aspirant Ralph Nader would be on the ballots. Daniels has said he worked with the 39 th to try to make sure no Arkansas soldier in Iraq was disenfranchised as a result of the lawsuit.