WASHINGTON - The Committee on House Administration held a Full Committee Hearing titled, "Serving and Voting: Oversight of the Federal Voting Assistance Program."

Witness:
  • Dr. Liz Clark, Director of DoD Defense Services Support Center
  • Scott Wiedmann, Director of the Federal Voting Assistance Program; Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Personnel and Readiness
In case you missed it, here are the top takeaways:

1. Additional Challenges Active-Duty Military Voters Face

Chairman Bryan Steil (WI-01): Do active-duty service members face unique obstacles? Obviously, they do. What is FVAP doing in particular to make sure that people are voting and bringing up that percentage as we look out to the next midterm?

Mr. Scott Wiedmann: So Chairman Steil, there's 3 major obstacles that can make the absentee voting process more difficult sometimes for military members: time, distance, and mobility. From the time perspective, we encourage all military members in January of every year to send in that Federal Postcard Application Form so that their local election officials are aware that they're not at home, that they need an absentee ballot sent to them. Then, we also want them to, we encourage them to take advantage of the 45 day mailing time. As you know, federal law guarantees that states will send the ballots to the military voters at that 45th day before the election. They can receive it electronically, so in their email inbox, they can have that ballot printed out, vote, and then get it mailed back and take full advantage of that of that. 

Click the image or here to view Chairman Steil's Q&A.

 
2. Ensuring election integrity for overseas voters

Rep. Barry Loudermilk (GA-11): Okay, thank you. Director Wiedman, while I've got you, from your experience, are ballots of military voters deployed on active duty orders susceptible to voter fraud?

Mr. Scott Wiedmann: We facilitate the connectivity between that voter and that local election official. Then once the election official receives that they're the ones who would review the ballot for validity and authenticity.

Rep. Barry Loudermilk (GA-11): So you're taking it from the service member and delivering it to the local elections office or the state, is that what you're referring to?

Mr. Scott Wiedmann: The Military Postal Service Agency when it's dropped off at a military post office on an installation will take that, and they're an extension of the U.S. Postal Service, and then they'll have that delivered to Chicago. Then from there it goes into the U.S. Postal Service.

Rep. Barry Loudermilk (GA-11): What steps does FVAP take to ensure election integrity is upheld when assisting service members with voter registration?

Mr. Scott Wiedmann: So a person who is assigned as a voting officer does that job in a nonpartisan way, just basically there's to facilitate the process. FVAP provides FVAP.gov and the tools and materials. That local voting officer knows that installation, knows the circumstance they're in, whether it be a submarine or forward deployed, and then we'll help the voters to navigate the process locally.

Click the image or here to view Rep. Loudermilk's Q&A. 
3. Keeping voting assistance tools up to date

Rep. Mike Carey (OH-15): What metrics does the Federal Voting Assistance Program use to determine if the efforts to provide the opportunity for military and overseas voters to vote are successful?

Mr. Scott Wiedmann: Thank you, Representative Carey. So we look at the awareness of the program and the awareness of folks' ability to utilize the tools and resources available to them. We also asked the voting assistance officers how well the materials that we provided, both the book itself and the online presence, if that was a useful tool for them, and we usually get ratings in the 90s of people finding it useful as they're delivering voting assistance.

Rep. Mike Carey (OH-15): Let me ask you because you pointed to that book a couple of times and I know that we on this Committee have trying to making sure that we modernize the way things are done. The online presence with the information that's in the book is readily available to everybody, correct?

Mr. Scott Wiedmann: Correct, and it's up to date. This book is printed every 2 years because we want to make sure that we have something out there for folks who may not have internet access, or having a voting assistance or voting registration drive, they can refer to the book, but the online information is updated in real time. So, you may have an election office in a particular Ohio county that changes their address and we can get that updated on the website.

Rep. Mike Carey (OH-15): So has FVAP increased its outreach and education to the U.S. service members overseas, in your opinion?

Mr. Scott Wiedmann: We continually seek out a new ways to reach out to folks that would fit and target folks directly, especially that 18 to 24 year old cohort. 

Click the image or here to view Rep. Carey's Q&A.