Editorial: Soldiers are voters first
The public is getting dizzy watching Congress weave in and out with measures for soldier voting. The issue has many technical complications, constitutional and otherwise. But the politicians have compounded the complications with every known brand of joker and parliamentary trickery, until the situation almost defies comprehension.
In this, the politicians are outsmarting themselves. If they maneuver this so that many soldier ballots will not be counted – as some of them seem to desire – the public kickback will be so hard they won’t know what hit them.
For one thing is so clear that not even Congressional gyrations can obscure it: The country is determined that servicemen and women overseas shall vote. That determination is all the greater because the soldiers abroad are not here to speak for themselves.
Congress is aware that the public is supersensitive on this subject; hence the effort to cover up tracks. Thus the House has a special rule which if it prevails will bar a roll call on the controversial amendment proposing a federal ballot.
The legal and practical trouble in soldier suffrage arises because normal voting is on state ballots, and many states have no adequate machinery for absentee soldier voting. Added to this is the difficulty of distributing the bulky state documents abroad – which the Secretaries of War and Navy say cannot be done effectively unless the states simplify certain requirements.
On the political side is the fear of certain Southerners that sectional voting restrictions, such as the poll tax, will be undermined. Also, some Northern Republicans think the servicemen may return a Democratic majority because of the Commander-in-Chief, and using the states’ rights issue for obstruction.
A compromise is necessary. Since not all 48 states can guarantee the absent serviceman a ballot, there should be a substitute federal short ballot allowing a choice of presidential, vice presidential and Congressional candidates – leaving it to state election officials to count the votes returned.
To disfranchise eligible voters among the five and a half million fighting overseas for the preservation of American democracy would be a crime – and a costly crime.