Military voters still left without a voice

Men and women serving in the military overseas have a right to an orderly absentee voting process that guarantees their ballots will be counted.

The system in Virginia failed them last year. According to a lawsuit by the U.S. Department of Justice, between 2,100 and 2,400 overseas ballots were mailed less than 30 days before the election even though the applications had been received well in advance. Between 500 and 800 of those ballots arrived too late to be counted or were not returned at all.

A judge ruled in December that the late mailings violated federal law and ordered state and federal officials to cooperate on a solution. Almost a year later, the case remains unresolved.

Both sides share blame in the standoff. Some of the nitpicking legal arguments made by state attorneys reflect an unwillingness to accept responsibility for the mistakes. State attorneys criticized a Navy captain from Virginia Beach because he didn't list the date his ballot was sent to him in his complaint, even though their own records show the ballot was mailed to him less than a month before Election Day.

But Department of Justice lawyers aren't helping matters by continuing to demand that last year's ballots be counted. While every vote matters, it is unclear why - nine months into President Obama's term - the government's attorneys are still seeking a recount. The number of ballots at issue is too small to change the results of the election, and it would be in everyone's interest to focus on fixes that will avoid future problems.

Department of Justice energies should be channeled into a critique of reforms recently adopted by the Virginia General Assembly. One new law makes it easier for the state to enforce rules that absentee ballots be available 45 days before an election. A law sponsored by Del. John Cosgrove requires that when a registrar receives an application, ballots must be mailed within three business days "or as soon thereafter as is reasonably possible."

There's obviously a lot of wiggle room in the law, but efforts by Congress to adopt its own federal absentee deadlines haven't met with success. That leaves the Department of Justice in the awkward position of suing Virginia for failing to meet its deadline, even though the federal government doesn't have one of its own.

Although the state is charged with enforcing election rules for absentee voting, the errors in Virginia actually took place in local registrars' offices. Voting officials in Hampton Roads say they are complying with the new state laws. They note that the reduced volume of absentee ballot requests this year has made the task easier.

Efforts are under way to prevent a repeat of last year's injustice. It's not clear whether those efforts are adequate. State and federal officials had the opportunity to assess the corrective measures, but instead they've spent the past year squabbling. Unfortunately, the first real test of the reforms will now have to wait until Election Day.