Chapter XXIX

District Command Voting Supervisor

 

In order to facilitate voting by the armed forces, members of the Merchant Marine, and certain civilians attached to and serving with the armed forces, the Congress of the United States passed Public Law 277, 78th Congress. In accordance with the provisions of this law, a War Ballot Commission was established for the purpose of insuring uniform administration of the law. The members of the commission comprised the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Administrator of the War Shipping Administration. The Secretary of the Navy was responsible for the administration of the law with respect to all Naval personnel.

On 22 August 1944, in accordance with a directive of the Secretary of the Navy,1 the Commandant of the Eighth Naval District designated a District Command Voting Supervisor to represent him in the discharge of his responsibility in connection with the administration of servicemen's voting. All Naval activities of the Eighth Naval District were ordered to designate voting officers for their commands in order to comply with the provisions of the Servicemen's Voting Law. The District Command Voting Supervisor conducted instructional conferences of Voting Officers and Assistants in various places throughout the Eighth Naval District in order to impress upon them the

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importance of proper administration of the Servicemen's Voting Law.

The Servicemen's Voting Law provided two means of voting for the Presidential, Congressional, and state elections of 7 November 1944: One method was by the Federal Ballot, which was authorized by the laws of twenty states. Oklahoma and Texas were the only states in the Eighth Naval District which authorized use of the Federal Ballot. No servicemen were permitted to make use of this ballot when inside the United States. The other method of voting was by a State Absentee Balloting Procedure. This method permitted personnel to apply for an absentee ballot through a uniform application in the form of a postcard, known as USWBC Form No. 1. All forty-eight of the states permitted servicemen to vote by application on one of these forms for an absentee ballot.

Responsibility for the distribution of War Ballot Material was placed on the Publication and Distribution Section of the Executive Office of the Secretary of the Navy. The material was forwarded to the Command Voting Supervisor of the Eighth Naval District, and he, in turn, forwarded it to the Voting Offices of the various activities of the District. Five large posters were disseminated throughout the District giving information concerning the rights of servicemen, instructions as to how to execute the war ballots, boundaries of congressional districts, and the like. In addition to these posters, a Navy Voting Manual was distributed to all Voting Officers containing interpretations of the Servicemen's Voting Law and information which would be useful in administering this law.

In January 1945 the Secretary of the Navy issued a directive

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stating how the Servicemen's Voting Law for the year 1945 should be administered.2 Voting officers were advised that postcard application for absentee ballots for any election held during the calendar year 1945 "shall be made available" to servicemen, and that reasonable measures should be taken to facilitate transmission and delivery of balloting material. Attention was invited to the fact that the law did not confer voting privileges, but merely provided a method for voting for servicemen and certain other persons who were qualified to vote under the laws of their states and who were absent from the place where they would normally vote. During the spring and summer of 1945 the War Ballot Office distributed information concerning elections in which Federal, state or local officials were to be elected, and the Command Voting Supervisor of the Eighth Naval District forwarded this information to the various Voting Officers of the district.

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FOOTNOTES

1. AlNav No. 96-44, dtd. 25 May 1944.
2. SecNav Airmailgram 211930, dtd. 5 Jan. 1945.

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