The Pittsburgh Press (March 11, 1944)
Stokes: A vote joker
By Thomas L. Stokes
Washington –
A joker which may not be so funny to state treasuries has been discovered in the soldier vote bill now awaiting final action by Congress. It may complicate still further the problem of soldier balloting.
Under a last-minute change in the bill made by the House-Senate conference committee, states will have to pay postage for sending out instructions for voting procedures and lists of candidates. As originally provided, these were to be postage free, that is, paid for by the federal government.
Free postage is still provided for postcards which the soldiers must mail back in order to get a ballot, for mailing the ballots, themselves, to the soldiers, and for envelopes in which the soldiers will mail back their ballots.
Some states do not carry voting instructions on the ballots. This means that if they want to send out instructions or lists of candidates, they cannot put them in the envelope with the ballots, unless they want to pay the postage on the whole package. Instead, they would have to mail the instructions or lists in a separate package, making just that much more mail, on which they must pay the postage.
Before Dewey spoke
Instructions on how to mark the ballot are regarded as important in some cases, because of peculiarities of state laws, particularly for soldiers who have come of age since they went into the service and are voting for the first time. Also lists of candidates will be necessary in some cases.
The provision for free postage for voting instructions and lists of candidates was stricken from the measure by the conferees at the tag end of their long and wearing ordeal over the measure, when someone brought in the report that voting instructions for New York State made up quite a sizeable volume.
Why, it was asked, should the federal government foot the bill for such bulky mail? Nobody knew whether New York actually had any idea of sending out anything like this. That was before Governor Dewey had presented his plan for state ballots to the New York Legislature which, he said, would call for a ballot package weighing only six-tenths of an ounce, well under the eight-tenths of an ounce prescribed by the bill.
Nothing can be done about the joker unless one branch or the other should reject the whole conference report and send it back for further consideration.
Another example of confusion
This is just another example of the muddling on the soldier vote bill. Confusion exists about some of its provisions. Already inquiries are coming in from secretaries of state, particularly as to whether poll tax and registration requirements are waived. No one is clear about this.
They were waived specifically in the existing law, passed in September 1942, which would remain in effect if President Roosevelt vetoed the pending measure. For this and other reasons, the belief is growing here that President Roosevelt will veto the bill and, in so doing, seize the opportunity to reply to Governor Dewey’s attack on the administration.
A probable tipoff was seen when Speaker Sam Rayburn withdrew his first endorsement of the conference agreement and said that he had not made up his mind whether he would support it.
The Senate will take up the conference report on the measure Tuesday.