Editorial: Wartime voting needs
Secretary of War Stimson and Secretary of the Navy Knox have laid down a number of minimum requirements which they believe essential to any soldier-voting plan.
The secretaries sent their recommendations to the Council of State Governments, obviously with the idea that the Council would distribute them among the states.
The requirements which Mr. Knox and Mr. Stimson say are necessary to enable the Army and Navy to carry out an election among the members of the Armed Forces are reasonable and to the point.
They say, in effect, they can’t stop the war while soldiers and sailors vote, but they also say the armed services will do everything in their power to carry out whatever laws are enacted.
But the necessary provisions which they have outlined should be sent to Congress because it is Congress which must enact the basic legislation if there is to be any uniformity in an election among the Armed Forces, or for that matter any election.
Congress resumes sessions Monday and a suitable arrangement for enabling the Armed Forces to vote should be the first order of business.
The purpose of the plan, however devised, is to give the 11 million men in the Army and Navy an opportunity to vote and any method which is so restrictive that it bars any of these men, save possibly those in actual combat at the time the vote is taken, will be satisfactory.
The only way to guarantee that all, or nearly all, of these men will be supplied with appropriate ballots is to set up a uniform system. As Mr. Knox and Mr. Stimson point out, they cannot adapt the military facilities to 48 different systems.
It would be impossible for the states to get together in the next few weeks, or even months, on a uniform voting plan. It is relatively simple for Congress to act. Congress should waste no time in being about it.