Ensuring the Right of Our Military Personnel to Vote By Senator John Pippy

With the 2004 presidential election upon us, a lot has been said and written about ensuring the voting rights of our military personnel serving overseas.

Many officials across Pennsylvania believe that we have an obligation to provide an extension of time so that military votes can be counted. In my view, we should do precisely that – because there is no more significant way for us to let our dedicated military know how much we respect them and how profoundly we appreciate the job they're doing to ensure our safety here at home.

As a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, it is my privilege to call the men and women stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other overseas locations my colleagues in the United States armed services. I'm fortunate to be back in Pennsylvania for this election, but thousands of others remain abroad.

Over the course of the many months I served in the Middle East, it became very clear to me how seriously military personnel take their right to vote. They should be given every opportunity to exercise that right.

Governor Rendell has repeatedly rejected calls to support such an extension. In doing so, he has relied on legal technicalities as supposed evidence that such an extension is not necessary. The many calls and emails my office has received from families of military men and women deployed abroad has made it very clear that many have not received their ballot in a timely manner and these "legal technicalities" will deny the voice of the men and women who are defending freedom and sacrificing so much. A two-week extension represents the least we can do for those who have done so much.

The bottom line is, or at least should be, this: The men and women of the U.S. military deserve to have their votes counted.

Our duty to serve these valiant members of the military, who serve us daily in harm's way, demands nothing less.

While the Rendell administration has yet to support the effort to ensure that our military personnel can exercise their right to vote, they have implemented an unprecedented program to educate convicted felons of their voting rights. On September 14, the Department of State and the Department of Corrections found the time to send a document entitled, "Voting Rights of Convicted Felons, Convicted Misdemeanants and Pretrial Detainees" to prison wardens and election officials across the state.

My point is not that any qualified citizen should be denied the right to vote – on the contrary, I serve in the military to help protect that very right.

This is not a time to be divided, nor is it an issue which should divide us. This is not a time for trivial excuses, nor for frivolous rhetoric.

Governor Rendell, please join with us now.

Let's work together so that all of our military personnel can have their votes counted.

NOTE: The writer, Senator John Pippy (R-Allegheny), served in Iraq and Kuwait as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom from April 2003 to December 2003.