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CV NEWS FEED // Three House Republicans expressed their “grave concern over deficiencies” in the Biden-Harris Department of Defense’s “protocols and procedures allowing active-duty service members to vote” in the 2024 general election.
In a letter sent to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last week, Reps. Brian Mast, R-FL, Bill Huizenga, R-MI, and Mike Waltz, R-FL, indicated that they are particularly “concerned the Pentagon has not done enough to make our service members aware of their options for voting.”
“[N]or has it committed enough resources so the men and women wearing our nation’s uniform can exercise their right to vote,” the lawmakers continued, again referring to Austin’s department.
The Republicans wrote that service members
brought to our attention that there has been inadequate education at the administrative level on how to register to vote, request an absentee ballot, and fill in a federal write-in absentee ballot if their state issued ballot does not arrive in time.
Other service members also stated that when a request for a federal write-in absentee ballot was made, they were told the base’s stockpile of such ballots was depleted and had not been replenished.
“The Pentagon must do everything in its power, so our nation’s elite warriors have every opportunity to make their voices heard this election cycle,” Mast, Huizenga, and Walz stressed. “This is especially important since voters will be deciding our next commander-in-chief – the person who will be making life-and-death decisions for our troops.”
After the letter was sent, a Pentagon spokesperson told The National News Desk that “over 3,000 Voting Assistance Officers were trained this election cycle for the department’s Federal Voting Assistance Program,” CBS affiliate KEYE reported.
The spokesperson also stated:
In addition to designating Voting Assistance Officers, every installation commander ensures voting assistance is included in the administrative in-processing, as well as pre- and post- deployment checklists required of reporting and detaching personnel
Writing for Townhall, Sarah Arnold noted that the lawmakers’ letter “comes after President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have refused to acknowledge that U.S. military members are serving overseas in combat.”
Arnold referred to the September 10 presidential debate during which Harris “claimed that no active service members were on the battlefield.”
This claim by the Democratic nominee was widely fact-checked as “false” across many media outlets, such as USA Today and CBS News.
A Pew Research Center poll released in September found that veterans of the U.S. military support Trump over Harris by a 24-point margin.
