Editorial: Soldiers must vote
There is still hope that the Senate can work out some practicable compromise in the soldier-vote fight.
The so-called states’-rights measure passed by the House does not do the job. Under it, most servicemen abroad would be disfranchised, because not all states can or will make the necessary changes in their laws and constitutions to facilitate absentee voting. There should be a federal ballot as a substitute, leaving to the states their constitutional function of counting all ballots.
The issue will be determined chiefly by the Republicans. Their almost-solid party vote – more than 9 to 1 – put over the states’-rights bill in the House. Some Republican leaders in the Senate have been more farsighted in seeking a compromise. Such a compromise probably would become an amendment to the House bill, and would permit both state and federal ballots.
Why should Republicans in the House suddenly become the states’-rights party, and at the risk of alienating soldiers? There seem to be three reasons for this paradox:
One is the real constitutional difficulty in any federal ballot, and the possibility that this will invite contested elections. But some of the suggested compromises eliminate most, though not all, of this danger.
A second reason probably arises from the harsh language used by President Roosevelt in trying to force Congress to act. While what he said about the need for an adequate law and the descriptive terms he applied to the House bill were apropos, his statement was received by many as an unjust smear and as a partisan campaign blast.
The third reason is the Republican fear that the President is accurate in his guess that the soldier vote will be heavily pro-Roosevelt. Of course such partisan considerations do not touch the inalienable right of the eligible soldier to vote. But, unfortunately, both the President and House Republican leaders seem to be thinking more about party politics than about the soldiers’ rights.
There is probably no way to make soldier voting absolutely fair as between a Republican candidate and Mr. Roosevelt. As Commander-in-Chief, and as one far better known to the troops than any Republican candidate can be, Mr. Roosevelt will have an advantage.
That should force the drafters of any federal ballot law, and the War and Navy Departments in handling the ballots, and the states in facilitating absentee voting and counting the results, to lean over backward to prevent the result from being rigged.
But it does not provide reason for disfranchising servicemen.