Securing the Vote for Those Who Serve and Sacrifice

And in line with the policy conversation that was specific to Kansas, given the growing national focus on election security and even recently the Supreme Court allowing the Trump administration to allow restrictions to mail in voting until said otherwise.

Are there any particular voting policies or reforms that you think policymakers and the public should pay closer attention to when it comes to the needs of military voters, but also how those needs, like we previously discussed, how those needs intersect with the needs of many other communities?

Let's just start by level setting here, right? Mail-in voting is an institution that our community has relied on ever since the Civil War.

It is safe and it is secure.

It has come under unprecedented attack.

But for us, and I'll expand it to just say absentee voting in general, it is not a luxury.

It's a lifeline because we do not have backup in-person options, right? So that's kind of level set number one.

What does that look like for SFI in terms of policy priorities? I mean, gold standard, and I know that this is controversial, so I respect multiple opinions on this issue, but having a way to cast my ballot electronically is ultimately going to be the only solution that can encapsulate as many different UOCAVA voting experiences as our community has.

And not only just accommodate that, but give us a comparable voting experience to that of our civilian counterparts.

Because right now, if I want to guarantee my ballot gets cast, I usually have to cast it 45 days before Election Day to be optimally proactive.

What happens when that October surprise comes and I come to regret my choice? We've had members come to us and say, I was the A student who did all my homework, but then something happens and I actually regret how it is that I voted.

And so we have the audacity to believe that those of us who are serving our country deserve to have a voting experience that allows for maximal deliberation, not just minimal access.

Now, I know I'm not going to win over everybody on electronic ballot return.

That's fine.

If you're going to restrict us to that mail-in opportunities, there are ways for policies to make that, again, more or less accessible.

So we push for things like grace periods, which I know came under attack earlier this summer with the Watson v. RNC SCOTUS ruling.

We were pleased that the Supreme Court ruled the way it did to protect a state's right to have these grace periods.

Our military vote coalition, which we chair with over 20 other nonprofits, has as a gold standard a minimum seven-day ballot grace period.

So that means if I mail that by ballot, as long as it's postmarked by Election Day, give it up to seven days to arrive and still be counted.

We also talk about policy things about making sure across the board there's consistent access to online ballot tracking.

So I can see that it made it back and got counted timely, proactive and robust ballot curing procedures.

In other words, if I got something wrong because I'm not in the local media market, I'm not getting the PSAs explaining this complicated new envelope format that my state has being able to fix a ballot before it's too late.

And then we also talk internal to military world about ways that the Pentagon can improve its support to families throughout that PCS, that permanent relocation process to make sure voting doesn't drop off.

So those are a few examples of what we focus on.

But I love what you said about how, and actually, let me just make this note too.