The Pittsburgh Press (August 20, 1944)
No deadline on names for soldier ballot
Earliest notice asked by elections office
There is no deadline on submitting the names of voters in the Armed Forces for military ballots.
But County Elections Director David Olbum yesterday urged the families of servicemen and women to turn in the names promptly to assure ballots being mailed in time to reach voters overseas.
The Elections Department already has a list of almost 90,000 names. Ballots to these voters will be mailed within the next 10 days, although the new State Military Ballot Law fixes Sept. 2 as the deadline.
Earlier the better
However, the Elections Department will mail ballots to all voters in the Armed Forces whose names are received after that date.
Mr. Olbum said the volume of military ballots to be sent overseas might preclude the arrival of ballots before Election Day unless the names of military voters are submitted to the Elections Department now.
Inquiries at the Elections Department in the last week, he said, indicated that many relatives of service voters had the erroneous idea that it was too late to submit names.
Extra staff on job
The only deadline fixed by the law is the one requiring the Elections Department to mail the ballots to all addresses on file no later than Sept. 2 and to mail ballots to additional addresses, received after that date, within 24 hours.
The Elections Department has been working an extra staff addressing envelopes for military ballots. The list of names, which will be posted to the Department when it is completed, is being arranged alphabetically.
Relatives or friends in doubt as to whether the name of any voter in the Armed Forces is listed will be permitted to check this list.
All Pennsylvania voters, regardless of whether they are registered, are eligible for military ballots if they are, or will be, 21 on or before Nov. 8 and are members of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps or other armed service, the Merchant Marine, Red Cross Society of Friends, WASPs or the USO in service either overseas or within the United States.