Monday, October 1, 2012
5:04 PM
Romney campaign wants GAB to push back deadline to absentee military ballots
Mitt Romney's campaign demanded today that the GAB extend the deadline for local election officials to receive absentee ballots from military voters.
But a Government Accountability Board spokesman said such a change would have to come through a court order.
The Romney campaign wrote in a letter that federal law requires election officials to send absentee ballots to military voters at least 45 days before a federal election. But at least 30 Wisconsin municipalities failed to send the ballots by the deadline of Sept. 22.
Former U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi, writing for the campaign, urged the GAB to immediately ensure the transmission of absentee ballots to soldiers, extend the deadline by which they must be returned and notify each military voter to whom GAB sends an absentee ballot of the proposed extended deadline.
Election officials must receive military absentee ballots by the Friday after the election, Nov. 9.
"A period of less than 45 days does not allow sufficient time for members of our armed forces to receive, complete, and return their absentee ballots," Principi wrote. "Your office's violations therefore may deprive service members of their fundamental right to vote."
GAB spokesman Reid Magney said the agency will respond directly to the Romney campaign. But he stressed the agency identified the municipalities that had not met the deadline and was already working with them to get the ballots out.
He also said some of the ballot requests came from other Wisconsin residents abroad -- not just soldiers.
Magney said the GAB alone can't change the deadline for the ballots to be received.
"It would have to be by court order," he said.
-- By JR Ross
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