Weeks before the September 19 deadline for states to send midterm ballots to military and overseas voters, the Pentagon used an “emergency” request to change the federal forms those voters use, NPR reported. Among the changes, it removed the checkbox for a U.S. citizen abroad who has “never lived in the United States.” Some version of that option had been on the Federal Post Card Application and the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot since 2013. Non-military applicants are now left with two sworn options: that they intend to return to the United States, or that they are uncertain about returning.
The Democratic National Committee's complaint, filed October 1 in federal court in Washington, lays out the sequence. On August 13 the Defense Department sent the Office of Management and Budget an emergency request to amend the form, which OMB did not approve. On August 26 it sent a second, nearly identical request, and OMB approved it on August 28, two days after receiving it. The usual 60-day public comment period opened only afterward; NPR reported that the Pentagon started the comment period more than a week after the forms changed. The DNC asks the court to set the change aside under the Administrative Procedure Act and restore the January 2023 form, alleging that the department “has proclaimed a transparently false 'emergency' to alter voter-registration materials without notice and comment in an effort to disenfranchise eligible American citizens.” That is the DNC's allegation; no court has ruled.
The Pentagon's stated reason, from Sean O'Keefe, its deputy under secretary for personnel and readiness: the forms “may confuse voters about the information they are required to provide under Federal law and their eligibility to use these forms to register and vote.” Its letter to OMB said, “The elimination of this checkbox will reduce confusion and avoid the use of the form by those who are ineligible under UOCAVA.” The department says states can keep processing older versions of the form: “States administer elections and can process any form or application that provides the information required to verify a voter's eligibility to vote in their jurisdiction.”
The population is small but real. Thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia let these citizens vote, and a 2016 estimate by the Pentagon's own Federal Voting Assistance Program put about 11,590 of them on the rolls, according to the complaint as reported by the Epoch Times. The change tracks a Republican legal campaign: the complaint cites an RNC filing in Virginia saying such voters “largely favor Democratic candidates,” and courts in four states have rejected the RNC's challenges while a North Carolina court accepted one. The RNC's Ally Triolo: “Enforcing citizenship and residency requirements isn't disenfranchisement—it's following the law.” Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat of the U.S. Vote Foundation told NPR, “I definitely believe that the new version of the form will create far more confusion than we ever encountered with any previous version.” See also Trump Signs an Executive Order Creating Federal Voter Lists and Restricting Mail-In Voting; States Immediately Refuse to Comply.