[EL] Information on enforcement of the MOVE Act?

[Rob Richie]

Greetings,

As the federal primary season
<https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/2020-state-primary-election-dates.aspx>finally
comes to a close this week (Delaware for its US Senate and House primaries
trailing the pack, with New Hampshire and Rhode Island last week and
Massachusetts the week before) and as several states resolve legal
challenges involving ballot measures and disputes between the major parties
in their appallingly self-serving efforts to keep third parties on or off
the ballot based on crass partisan calculation, I was curious if anyone on
this list tracks compliance with and enforcement of the federal MOVE Act
<https://www.fvap.gov/eo/waivers>.  It's timely, as this coming Saturday
marks the 45-day deadline for mailing ballots to military and overseas
voters to ensure they have enough time to receive, complete and
return their ballots - and ballots of course have to be printed and
prepared before mailing.

A late primary date can be a reason for a waiver,
<https://www.fvap.gov/uploads/FVAP/EO/2012_waiver_guidance.pdf> but the
September primary states have had a decade now to shift their primaries
backward. Clearly states with these late primary dates are rolling the dice
in being able to complete their ballot counts, resolve close contests  and
print and mail ballots in a timely way. Yet according to the Federal Voting
Assistance Program, the only waivers from the 45-deadline since the
2010 elections have been New York in 2012 and 2016 and West Virginia in
2014.

I'll note that our elected leaders' commitment to voting rights for
overseas voters seems at best erratic. For example, a number of states and
cities hold runoff elections within 5 weeks of the first election --
sometimes as short as a week. While they could follow the practice that
five southern states use
<https://www.fairvote.org/overseas-voters-from-5-states-to-use-ranked-choice-voting-ballots-in-2014-congressional-election>for
federal office (send ranked choice voting ballots to overseas voters so
that top-ranked choice in the runoff can be tallied), almost none do. Georgia's
selective concern about overseas voters
<https://ballotpedia.org/Georgia_elections,_2020> is such that it's quite
plausible that it will end up running a November 3rd general election, a
December 1st state runoff election( just 28 days later, which of course is
not good for overseas voters), and then one or two U.S. Senate runoffs on
January 5, 2021 to comply with the MOVE Act just for that office (the
latter date being two days AFTER the swearing in of most new U.S. Senators
on January 3).

Thanks,
Rob

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Rob Richie
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