22 percent of military members voted in the 2006 election

Former Marine: DOD voting system ‘broken’
By Charlie Coon, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Thursday, September 11, 2008



WASHINGTON — A former Marine who was a voting assistance officer told a Senate committee on Tuesday that he recommends troops living overseas look at online voting alternatives rather than use their military-organized programs.

Bryan O’Leary, a former F-18 pilot who works for a Washington law firm, noted that many servicemembers are on the move or based in remote areas. Those troops, O’Leary said, would be better off using an online registration site — www.overseasvotefoundation.org — rather than the "broken" system devised by the Department of Defense for its members.

"This is your best recourse if you haven’t gotten a ballot yet," O’Leary told the Senate Judiciary Committee during a hearing on ways the Justice Department is trying to ensure voting access.

O’Leary, citing statistics from the Defense Manpower Data Center, said that only 22 percent of military members voted in the 2006 election, including only 17 percent of those stationed overseas, compared with 40 percent of eligible voters in the general population.

He also told the committee that more than 48,000 ballots from overseas were rejected after being challenged by various candidates from both major political parties.
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