Nesbitt urges passage of election reform bill

New York State Assemblyman Charlie Nesbitt (R, C-Albion) urged the State Assembly to pass his election reform bill that would help safeguard the voting rights of America's military personnel serving abroad and protecting the nation in wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Nesbitt's legislation, Assembly Bill A.167, would modify the state's Election Law to provide that those military ballots that were signed and dated by the voter and received by the local board of elections within seven days following the date of the election shall be counted when de-termining the election results.

Nesbitt said individuals serving in areas without access to an 'official' post office, including men and women stationed in aircraft carriers or on active duty in far away regions, must rely on the military's postal process that often doesn't provide a postmark for items.

"In the wake of the heinous and cowardly terrorist attacks on our nation, thousand of men and women have been called upon to leave their families and help preserve and protect America's freedom and bring those responsible for the attacks to justice," said Nesbitt, who served as a combat helicopter pilot in the United States Army during the Vietnam War.

"These heroes deserve each and every opportunity to have their voting rights safeguarded, especially from the type of hyper-technicalities that resulted in thousands of overseas military ballots being invalidated during the 2000 Presidential Election," said Nesbitt, the Deputy Assembly Republican Leader.

Nesbitt's legislation would resolve this clash by allowing an election ballot cast to be counted if it contains the voter's signa-ture, and was dated on or before Election Day. Nesbitt cited statistics from the 1996 Presidential Election which found that voting participation among the Uniformed Service at 64 percent, versus 49 percent for the general public.

"The dedicated men and women serv-ing our nation in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines are among the most civically active of our citizenry and they deserve to have their right of democratic franchise protected," Nesbitt stated.

Nesbitt's bill has been endorsed by several military service personnel and veterans' groups such as the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars.