Concern over military votes not counting

(NEWSCHANNEL 3) - Voters came out on November 4^th in record numbers to make a choice between Barack Obama and John McCain.

Nearly 130 million Americans cast their vote on that day, among those voting were our troops serving overseas, but a new study found many of their votes weren't counted and some of those votes belonged to Michigan natives.

The Pew Research Center report shook up election boards in 25 states Wednesday, and 16 of them, including Michigan, are answering to the claim.

The problem is that the Department of Defense recommends that states allow a 45 day window from the time absentee ballots are sent out and the date of the election. In Michigan, the election board sticks to that, but the law also requires the ballots to be sent and returned by U.S. Mail.

Especially overseas, the term 'snail mail' certainly holds true. It takes awhile to move mail around. The Pew report says that it takes an average of 57 days for overseas military voters to complete the process, that would require states to add 13 days to the time table to ensure that all the ballots get out and back in time.

But a spokesperson for Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land says that Michigan's convention process didn't wrap up until September 5^th.

"So it would've been impossible to print ballots in time to meet their deadline," said Kelly Chesney, spokesperson for Michigan Sec. Of State. "However, we did send out ballots and meet the Department of Defense deadline, which requires us to send ballots 45 days prior to the elections."

Some wonder why can't you fax the votes, or email them, do them on-line somehow. The Secretary of State says there was once a federal program making that possible, but for security reasons, the government scrapped it about three or four years ago. Secretary Land wants the program to come back and eliminate a potential issue.

The numbers of voters affected for 2008 aren't in yet, but Newschannel 3 learned that in 2006 about two-thirds of the ballots sent to military overseas were not counted. Those ballots either got in too later, or had other problems.