On any given day, more than 170,000 active-duty, U.S. military personnel put their lives on the line far from home.
When it comes time to cast a ballot for elections back home, their right to vote — as well as those of U.S. citizens living overseas — is guaranteed through a federal law, known as the "Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act."
"It's been in place for 40 years, and since 2009, it's been amended and modernized — which means lots of the services are online," said Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, president and CEO of the U.S. Vote Foundation and Overseas Votes.
The nonpartisan, nonprofit organization works to ensure Americans living overseas are able to vote in U.S. elections. Dzieduszycka-Suinat herself lives in Germany.
"We have to go through just as much in terms of security checks, checking our data, where we lived, our personal information ID, signature, authentication on ballots — all of that," she said.
The Republican National Committee, though, filed lawsuits in Michigan and North Carolina and several Republican members of Congress filed one in Pennsylvania, seeking to limit the counting of some overseas ballots, including some of voters actively serving in the U.S. military overseas, because of what they allege are lax verification requirements.
However, on Monday, state judges in Michigan and North Carolina ruled against the two RNC lawsuits. Pennsylvania remains contested.
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The RNC said in a statement to Scripps News, "We are fighting to protect the votes of military voters and overseas citizens to be counted properly, and not canceled by ineligible votes."
The lawsuits have infuriated some Democratic members of Congress. They say the lawsuits would disenfranchise U.S. service members.
"This is a direct threat to the voting rights of the people who are literally risking their lives to protect voting rights for their fellow Americans," said New York Rep. Pat Ryan..
The lawsuits also prompted several Congressional Democrats to send a letter to U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, calling on him to ensure military service members overseas get to vote.
"If I were active duty at this point in time and serving overseas or the family member of somebody serving overseas stationed abroad with them, I would be apoplectic," said Pennsylvania Rep. Chrissy Houlahan.
According to a 2022 federal voting report, during the 2020 presidential election, 33.7% of active-duty U.S. military personnel requested an absentee ballot. Out of those, 81% voted using their requested ballot.
In a race for the presidency as tight as the one now unfolding, any military or overseas votes could make a difference, especially in a swing state.
Scripps News has learned that a coalition of veterans groups, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars, is issuing a condemnation of efforts to restrict overseas military voting.
"It is of paramount importance to all Americans that the rights of our service members and their families are preserved in full, lest we betray our commitments to these men and women to whom our country owes so much," the group wrote in a letter.
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"I think every American wants to see military members wherever they are stationed to be able to vote. I think there could be people that don't understand how the system works and want to make sure that those votes are counted in the way they're supposed to be, and that they're safely processed. But I do think each state has worked out a system that works best for them," said Ellen Gustafson, co-founder and executive director of We the Veterans and Military Families.
According to a federal report on the 2020 election, about 45,000 U.S. military service members cast absentee ballots. That number doesn't even include the hundreds of thousands of other U.S. citizens who voted and live abroad. All are votes than can potentially make a difference in a tight race.
The lawsuits create a potentially complicated scenario, as overseas and military voting is already underway and, depending on the state, some of those ballots may already have been processed.
