Primaries Dispatch: Thousands of Military and Overseas Ballots Already Cast in Upcoming Elections

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With primaries fast approaching, election officials in South Carolina, Florida, and Missouri have been busy sending ballots to military and overseas voters, as required by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) and in accordance with the federal Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act of 2009.

As of January 13, the South Carolina Board of Elections reported that it had sent 191 UOCAVA ballots and 77 have been returned for its January 21 primary.

For Florida’s January 31 primary, 22,657 ballots have been requested and sent to UOCAVA voters, according to the Secretary of State’s office. Nearly 3,800 were returned as of January 9. About 1,300 UOCAVA ballots have been sent for Missouri’s February 7 primary, according to the Secretary of State’s office. The office did not have data on how many have been returned. In a dispatch from December 2011, we noted that military and overseas voters had cast the first ballots in the New Hampshire presidential primaries before the Thanksgiving holiday.