Military voters risk being disenfranchised as Republicans lay the groundwork to potentially challenge the results of the presidential election if former President Donald Trump does not win in November, advocates for service members and their families are warning.
Republicans in several key swing states have filed lawsuits in recent weeks that target a law that allows service members and their families to vote in their home states while they are stationed abroad or in another state.
The lawsuits, part of a campaign that Republicans have embarked on that critics say is aimed at sowing doubt about the election results if Trump loses, have left military families fearful that their ballots will not be counted.
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"I've actually previously had issues with getting my ballot back and my vote not counting, so this just feels like another thing that is going to impact that, and that's frustrating," said Jamie Boyle, an Army spouse who lives in Virginia with her husband and is registered to vote in Pennsylvania, one of the states were military ballots are being targeted. "I am concerned that my vote is going to get lost in the shuffle."
At issue is a law called the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, or UOCAVA. The law, enacted in 1986, allows U.S. citizens living abroad to vote using absentee ballots. The law also applies to civilians living, working and studying abroad, but a large chunk of voters under the law are service members and their families. The law also applies to military families such as Boyle's who are stationed stateside but stay registered to vote in their home states to avoid the headache of reregistering with every move.
Because of the realities of military life such as constant moves and deployments to remote areas, military families have long reported difficulties voting. In 2022, just 26% of eligible military voters participated in the election, and about half of those who didn't vote said they had difficulty requesting a ballot or were otherwise confused about the process, according to the Federal Voting Assistance Program's report on military voters for that election.
"For military families, we already run into so many stumbling blocks when it comes to registering to vote, to getting the right information to register to vote, to feel like it is achievable, and we know that when there is a lack of confidence in voting, there is less likelihood to vote," said Khiet Ho, a Marine Corps spouse who is the lead researcher at Secure Families Initiative, a military families organization that in part works to expand military voting.
In the past, making it easier for service members and their families to vote has been a bipartisan endeavor. A 2009 law that updated UOCAVA, called the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act, passed with broad bipartisan support as part of that year's annual defense policy bill.
But UOCAVA has increasingly come under attack from Republicans as they and Trump have promoted unfounded conspiracy theories about voter fraud and non-citizens voting.
When Trump tried to overturn the results of the election he lost in 2020, many of the votes he claimed were cast illegally were actually military voters who voted properly and were shocked to find their names listed in his complaints.
Now, as the 2024 election approaches and polls show a statistical tie between him and Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump has revived his falsehoods about overseas voter fraud. In a social media post in September, Trump baselessly alleged Democrats would use UOCAVA to "cheat."
And earlier this month, Republicans in Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania filed lawsuits alleging those states are allowing people to vote under UOCAVA without verifying their identities or whether they ever lived in the states.
"North Carolinians and Michiganders should not have their votes canceled by those who've never lived in the state in the first place -- plain and simple. This is illegal and we will stop it," Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement earlier this month.
The RNC filed the North Carolina and Michigan lawsuits, while the Pennsylvania lawsuit was filed by six Republican congressmen who previously voted against certifying the 2020 election. The Pennsylvania lawsuit asks for all UOCAVA ballots to be segregated and not counted until the identities of the voters are verified, while the North Carolina and Michigan lawsuits ask for ballots from voters who never lived in the states to be rejected.
In a letter this week to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin urging him to ensure service members can exercise their right to vote, six House Democrats who are veterans blasted the Pennsylvania lawsuit as an effort to "usurp the right to vote from our men and women in uniform, as well as their families."
"Undercutting confidence in our free and fair elections by disenfranchising our service men and women is unacceptable," said the letter, which was organized by Army veteran Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y.
The lawsuits are part of a sweeping effort the Trump campaign and its GOP supporters have undertaken to create doubt about the integrity of the election and increase the chances of successfully challenging the results if Trump loses. Republicans have filed dozens of lawsuits challenging voter rolls; created cumbersome rules for counting ballots such as Georgia's hand-count rule that has since been blocked by a judge; created more opportunities to audit results before they are certified; and enacted new limits on absentee voting.
Supporters of UOCAVA and military voters maintain the allegations that the law is susceptible to fraud are baseless. Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, founder of Overseas Vote, which advocates for making it easier for overseas citizens to vote, said she finds the lawsuits particularly "insidious," because they reinforce myths her organization has worked hard to dispel about military votes not counting.
"These laws have been on the books for a long time. Never have they been challenged like this. So it makes the challenge more suspect," Dzieduszycka-Suinat said. "It's a bit rich to think you could change it a few weeks before the election. There's obviously intent there to disenfranchise these voters and to disqualify their votes entirely."
Even if the lawsuits eventually get dismissed, advocates for military families worry they could have a chilling effect on voter turnout this year and beyond by leading voters to think their ballots won't be counted.
"To feel like you're putting in all this effort, and then there are lawsuits, and you don't know if your vote's going to count when you spend literally hours trying to vote" is discouraging, said Ho from Secure Families Initiative. "Trying to figure out the steps, trying to download the documents, trying to submit the document, maybe your printer at home doesn't work, maybe you have to go to the base library to print it out, you have to then go to the post office, which is miles away from your home -- all these steps make it really difficult for military family members, especially overseas, to feel like your vote counts.
"There's an uproar," Ho added of the reaction to the lawsuits Secure Families Initiative has heard from its members. "There's definitely fear. There's concern that, 'What is going to happen? Are we again going to be victims of political games?'"
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