The Pittsburgh Press (January 14, 1944)
In Washington –
State-controlled soldier-vote bill is given approval
House Elections Committee’s measure rejects Army and Navy plea for federal distribution of ballots
Soldier vote issue may affect 7 million
Washington (UP) –
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (R-MA) said today that seven million American fighting men will be overseas by election time in November.Mr. Lodge made this estimate at a Senate Elections Committee hearing on the Lodge-Austin compromise soldier-vote bill.
President Roosevelt in his Christmas Eve broadcast said 3,800,000 men are already overseas and that the total will reach five million by July 1.
Washington (UP) –
The House Elections Committee today approved a soldier-vote bill leaving control over absentee ballots for servicemen and women in the hands of the states.
The proposal would authorize the Secretaries of War and Navy to send cards to all members of the Armed Forces and the Red Cross, merchant seamen and civilians serving overseas, requesting them to notify the secretary of their home state if they desire an absentee ballot. The state officials would then forward the ballots and upon their return dispatch them to local election boards.
Retains Senate provision
The committee-approved bill retains that provision of the Senate legislation recommending to the several states that “appropriate machinery” be enacted to handle the disposition of the presidential ballots.
The principal difference between the bill approved by the House committee and that passed by the Senate is that the House measure provides that the Secretaries of War and Navy should place in the hands of service personnel overseas by Aug. 15 a postal application for a ballot.
The Army and Navy have gone on record as holding that only a system of federal distribution of ballots is workable. Both bills reject that contention.
Coalition defeats bill
The House committee voted 7–5 for the bill, with four Republicans and three Southern Democrats approving it.
The coalition defeated a “compromise” proposal offered by Chairman Eugene Worley (D-TX), which would have provided for a federal ballot commission to prepare ballots which would be transmitted to servicemen and women by the Secretaries of War and Navy.
Weiss urges soldier vote
Washington –
If Congress could find no constitutional objections to the draft, it shouldn’t raise such a question about the right of soldiers to a federal ballot in the coming election, Rep. Samuel A. Weiss (D-Glassport) told the House of Representatives.
Mr. Weiss presented petitions signed by 10,000 Allegheny County residents, representing 3,100 men in the armed services and urging passage of a soldier-vote bill.