Iowans casting votes for state elections from around the world

As the election returns roll in tonight, you'll see all the familiar precinct names - Cedar Rapids 42, Boulder, Shimek, Mount Vernon South, Lemme and Plotz Shed.

Nowhere will it mention Travis Monk's lone vote from Auckland, New Zealand, or votes from far-flung places like Barbados, Oman, the Slovak Republic and Vatican City. Neither are there precinct listings for Iraq or Afghanistan.

Iowans are casting their ballots from all those places, however.

Overseas and military voting is a drop in the bucket of all Iowa ballots cast. So far this election cycle, the Iowa Secretary of State's Office reports receiving 3,010 requests for overseas/military ballots out of more than 2.1 million Iowans registered to vote.

Thanks to a federal law passed in 1986 - the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act - military and overseas civilian voters have the right to cast absentee ballots in federal elections. There could be as many as 6 million Americans voting from overseas.

“But there's really no reliable estimate of how many military and overseas voters are out there,” said Doug Chapin, director of election initiatives for the Pew Center on the States. “They're not all military.”

Those who voted successfully overseas in 2008 did so in the face of procedural hurdles and tight deadlines in half the states and Washington, according to a study by the Pew Center on the States. Challenges ranged from blank ballots mailed too late to ballots returned by fax or e-mail, which raises questions about privacy and security.

Last year, Iowa was ranked by the Overseas Vote Foundation as the best state in the nation in making voting accessible to military and overseas voters.

Accommodating those voters has taken on new importance in recent years as election officials have responded to the number of military men and women voting from Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

“We get requests from servicemen and -women all over the world,” Secretary of State Michael Mauro said during a recent visit to Iowa City.

It's not just military personnel who are voting from abroad. Students, missionaries, business people, government and private organization employees and retirees are among those seeking overseas ballots.

Monk, 8,000 miles from his Clayton County home in St. Olaf, is voting from New Zealand because he's working on his doctorate there.

It's not a privilege to be able to vote from so far away, Monk said by e-mail. “It's my right as a citizen of the United States.

“So while I consider myself lucky to be a citizen of a proper democratic country, I also consider it the responsibility of any proper democratic country to help its overseas citizens participate in the voting process,” Monk said. “It just comes with the territory of being democratic.”

He's one of about 30 Clayton County residents in more than a dozen countries who requested overseas ballots this year. Other than an increase in requests from military personnel, that's pretty typical, said Deputy Auditor Jennifer Garms.

Johnson County Auditor Tom Slockett suspects requests are high this year not only because of National Guard deployments, but because requests for the 2008 presidential election were valid for two general elections. The law has been changed, and now requests are valid for only one year.

Auditors say interest in voting from overseas spikes in presidential elections. Many ballots are not returned for other elections, Slockett said. His office has received 329 overseas/military requests, but only 85 ballots have been returned.

Statewide, less than a third of the ballots requested had been returned as of Oct. 28, the Secretary of State's Office said.

Linn County Deputy Auditor Tim Box reported 88 requests from 29 countries. Voters in Canada generated 15 requests, and he received 12 from the United Kingdom, 10 from Germany and nine from France.

Voters requesting ballots don't have to provide any information about their occupation. APO addresses are a giveaway for military personnel. Mauro said many voters are working overseas, some permanently.