While many civilians are new to absentee voting this year, members of the military have been voting by mail for decades.

By Rachel Ford, Granite State News Collaborative

With the COVID-19 pandemic happening during a critical election cycle, it’s no surprise many voters are turning to mail-in absentee ballots this year. That’s left many people wondering how their vote will be protected in transit to their local clerk’s office. 

However, voting by mail is something the military has been doing since the Civil War in 1864, and the processes they have in place have allowed the safe transfer of ballots from soldiers stationed stateside and globally.

In order for a soldier to get their absentee ballot, they must fill out and submit to their local election office a Federal Post Card Application, which guarantees a soldier gets their ballot at least 45 days before the election. 

Once their ballot arrives and they fill it out, soldiers drop it off at a military or local post office, or a U.S. embassy or consulate if a post office is unavailable. According to the Federal Voting Assistance Program website, soldiers submitting their absentee ballots by mail should do so by certain dates to ensure their ballot arrives: for soldiers at sea they recommended by Oct. 5 this year, for soldiers stationed outside the U.S. they recommended by Oct. 13. 2020, and soldiers stateside should submit their ballots by Oct. 27.

New Hampshire’s Deputy Secretary of State David Scanlan is expecting 4,000-6,000 military absentee ballots this year. 

When towns in New Hampshire get their mail, it’s typically sent out to a central sorting facility before being delivered. For example, if a ballot is mailed in Keene and comes into the Keene Post office, it would normally go to Manchester to be sorted, before being delivered to its destination, the Keene city clerk’s office, Scanlon said. This year, officials have a solution for any absentee ballots trickling in during the last few days leading up to the election

“What the officials in New Hampshire have said is that as we get closer to the election, if there's a volume of absentee ballots that are showing up in Keene that likely won't make a trip to Manchester and back, they will skip that step and allow that ballot to simply be hand stamped and delivered to the clerk,” Scanlan explained.

If a soldier has trouble getting their absentee ballot or it doesn’t arrive in time for them to send it out, New Hampshire is offering a couple of options. One that’s been used for the longest time is an emergency write-in ballot, which allows a soldier to write in their choices and mail it in to their local election official. New Hampshire soldiers are also able to receive their ballot electronically.

“If [they] have requested it by [the deadline], the military ballots are the only ones that we are authorized by statute to email,” Scanlan said. “They can download them, print them off, fill them out, and then they have to return them through the mail or through the department of defense.”

Many states have developed processes that allow soldiers to vote electronically, such as receiving and sending back a ballot through fax or email, or allowing the voter to sign into an online web portal and vote, but these are far from perfect options,” Scanlan said. 

“There are two major concerns that we have related to those electronic processes: one is the privacy of the voter. Anytime something is sent back electronically, it has to go to a specific individual who would be able to see the choices that that voter actually made on the ballot, but one of the pillars of secure and fair elections is making sure that the voter’s vote is private and it's only known to the voter that makes that choice,” he explained.

“Second are issues related to cybersecurity and making sure that those electronic systems are safe and secure and can't be hacked,” he continued. 

If a process comes along that allows safe voting electronically, it could certainly be in New Hampshire’s future, Scanlan said. 

This year’s presidential election will undoubtedly be historic, so make sure your vote is counted. Members of the military who have not yet requested an absentee ballot should visit fvap.gov or speak with their Voting Assistance Officer to see what options are available to them.

These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.