6 - Voting from Abroad: Evaluating UOCAVA Voting

Summary

Federal elections in America are often very close. The National Commission on Federal Election Reform found that close elections are exceedingly common, whether they be U.S. House or Senate races or the state-by-state component of the presidential elections. Specifically, they found “a 90 percent likelihood that at least one state will have a presidential election within the one-percent technical margin of error.” The probability is 71 percent for U.S. Senate elections and 99 percent for House elections. In these close races, a small number of votes can change the outcome of the election.

Since the Civil War, it has been recognized that one population of voters whose participation can change the outcome of an election is military personnel. Most of the convenience voting we have today – absentee and early voting – dates back to efforts to enfranchise military voters in the 1864 election.

Recent efforts to enfranchise military personnel and the overseas civilian population have resulted in the passage of several pieces of legislation, including the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) of 1986 and the Military and Overseas Voting Empowerment (MOVE) Act of 2009. 2 Under UOCAVA, eligible voters can complete the federal postcard application (FPCA), which allows them to simultaneously register to vote and submit an absentee ballot, or, if voters have not received a ballot from a local election official (LEO), they can complete the federal write-in absentee ballot (FWAB). These bills were intended to streamline the process of voting for covered individuals and make it easier for them to vote in federal elections. However, even with the passage of such legislation, the voting process for these individuals still has many barriers.