Posted March 7, 2007 by J. Gerald Hebert

Voting Rights for Our Vets

Yesterday, on Rick Hasen’s Election Law Listserv, came a very interesting but shocking post from Scott Rafferty.  Most of my facts come from Rafferty’s informative post.  His post noted that, with the emerging scandal at Walter Reed and other VA medical facilities, came an announcement yesterday by the Army Surgeon General that many wounded soldiers will be transported directly to VA facilities, bypassing Walter Reed and Fort Lewis.  Since the VA's National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress is in California, many of our country’s most seriously wounded vets will now find themselves discharged and repatriated to Northern California.  The VA’s only polytrauma rehabilitation facility in the western United States is also located in California (Palo Alto).

"So what?" you might ask.  And what does this have to do with elections and the right to vote?  Well, coincidently, the VA announced last week that its staff at these two VA facilities will no longer provide any voting-related assistance to patients and veterans in long-term care, even in those cases where a vet suffers from a physical or mental disability that prevents them from completing voting forms.  Under the new procedures, new vets assigned to these two trauma facilities for more than a 30-day stint will be handed a California voter registration card. 

I have a problem with this, and I am sure many Americans do as well.  Our returning vets should be given more services, not less.  And when it comes to the most precious right we have as Americans, the right to vote, we should give our military members every possible resource and form of assistance.  It’s a cliché but true: it’s the least we can do for those who risked their lives for their country.

Since our wounded veterans are no longer overseas, they will no longer have access to the terrific Defense Department voter assistance program offered to our military personnel overseas.  As vets no longer overseas, they will also lose statutory protection from the state tax consequences of voting in federal elections.  Many veterans live in states where their taxes are lower than California, including some like Texas that have no income tax at all.  Moreover, as Rafferty points out in his post, veterans who sign the California voter registration forms that will be offered to them under these new procedures “may forfeit their right to reestablish residency in a former domicile, lose the one-time opportunity for a repatriating solider to choose a new home for tax or educational benefits, and expose themselves to California's famous income tax—all without any realistic opportunity to seek legal advice or determine out-of-state election dates and eligibility requirements.”

If a veteran does not fill out the form, then it would appear they will lose the right to vote.  After all, how will their home state know where to send their absentee ballots?  If they fill out the CA voter registration form, they suffer some potentially adverse economic consequences.  It’s a Hobson’s choice.  I agree with Rafferty that this is shabby treatment indeed for our wounded veterans.  

Congress should at least look into this matter and consider whether it is necessary to enact legislation affording voting protections for our military personnel returning from overseas.  And they should do so at once, before our veterans either lose the right to vote or are subjected to unintended negative consequences as a result of their relocation.