The Soldier Vote

The main fact about the soldier vote, the biggest unknown of the 1944 campaign, was that in the first U.S. wartime Presidential election in 80 years,* some 4,300,000 men & women in the armed services had already applied for ballots.

This was news. The Administration had argued for ten months that the Soldier Vote law, by giving the responsibility to 48 states, would in effect deny many soldiers the right to vote. The states and the armed forces were doing yeoman work in getting out the ballot. It was too early to say that the 4,300,000 applications already received would mean that 4,300,000 servicemen were actually going to cast ballots. Some states are less efficient than others; in some states, notably the South, where the servicemen's vote is not crucial, inefficiency may lose some soldier votes. But the great number of applications augured well for a heavy soldier vote. Step 2, a state job--getting the ballots to the soldiers--seemed well under way. Step 3--getting the ballots back--was the Army's job. Step 4--counting them--was again the states' job.

From 18 states came estimates that 600,000 ballots have already been cast. Election experts made a guess on the total number of ballots that might eventually be returned and counted: at least 2,300,000. But since some states were mixing soldier and civilian ballots, the exact final total of the armed services' vote may never be known.

The New York figures were one example of how decisive the serviceman's vote might be in a close race. Albany received some 590,000 serviceman ballot applications. (In 1940, Franklin Roosevelt's plurality in New York was 224,440; Tom Dewey lost his 1938 try at the governorship by less than 65,000.)

The due dates for completed ballots varied in the 48 states from five days before, to 27 days after, Nov. 7. Virginia required all ballots to be in by Nov. 2; Rhode Island would count soldier votes up to Dec. 4. Pennsylvania, which believed that it had the biggest number of applications (620,000) will not count them until Nov. 22. If the soldier vote should be the determining factor, the U.S. may have to wait days or even weeks after Nov. 7 to learn the election results.

*The only other: Lincoln v. McClellan in 1864. Out of the 25 Union states, 13 allowed absentee voting. Commander in Chief Lincoln received 53% of the civilian vote, was surprised and gratified, since he was running against an eminent general, to learn that he had polled 77 1/2% of the soldier vote.

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