The Alliance for Military and Overseas Voting Rights (AMOVR) released two surveys today to
gather responses from US military members and their families and overseas civilians on their
experiences with the absentee voting process. The surveys were developed by an Alliance
committee that focuses on military families, with the assistance of the Pew Center on the
States. The military family and overseas civilian surveys are located online at
http://tiny.cc/AMOVR_Military and http://tiny.cc/AMOVR_Overseas, respectively. Links to the
surveys will also be available online at http://www.amovr.org once the site is completed.

AMOVR is a coalition of over 30 military associations, non-profit organizations, elected officials
and advocacy groups dedicated to ensuring that Americans abroad have an equal right and
opportunity to vote. From its founding, the Alliance has worked to advance the following
principles:

-Military and overseas voters must be provided adequate time to receive, complete, and
return their absentee ballots;
-States should adopt standardized procedures for registering Uniformed and Overseas
Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) voters, delivering blank ballots to them and
receiving the cast ballots from them;
- Congress and the states should expand and accelerate research and pilot projects to find
technological solutions that provide a secure, efficient and convenient means for military
and overseas voters to cast their ballots; and
-The election system should serve both military and overseas civilians.

The data gathered from this survey will assist AMOVR in its efforts to assist military and
overseas families in the voting process; the goal is to standardize periods in which to request,
receive, complete and return absentee ballots; methods to register overseas voters; and the use
of technology in ballot casting.

Various problems with the existing military and absentee voting process have been discussed
and debated for years with few revisions in the system that still relies on outmoded technology
to request and deliver absentee ballots. AMOVR supports efforts to reform this system for
Americans civilians and members of the military alike and advocates changing inconsistent state
and federal laws to facilitate improvements.

AMOVR supports the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act that has been
incorporated into the National Defense Authorization Act as an amendment; the Alliance is
taking steps within the government channels to encourage state and federal representatives to
pass this legislation.