Fact Check: Military Did NOT Fail ‘To Provide Service Members With Backup Absentee Ballots’

Did the Pentagon fail to provide enough absentee ballots for service members overseas? No, that’s not true: If a member of the military requests an absentee ballot from their state but it does not arrive in time, they can print a ballot from a special website designed to assist any overseas American voter. More than 3,000 voting assistance officers are available to help service members cast a ballot, a Pentagon spokesperson said.

The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X on November 2, 2024. It said:

BREAKING: The Pentagon reportedly failed to send absentee ballots to active military service members before the election.

This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:

(Source: X screenshot taken on Mon Nov 4 15:34:14 2024 UTC)

Three members of Congress wrote a letter (archived here) to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin (archived here) on October 30, 2024, expressing concern from service members “that when a request for a federal write-in absentee ballot was made, they were told the base’s stockpile of such ballots was depleted and had not been replenished.”

The writers were Rep Brian Mast of Florida (archived here), Rep. Bill Huizenga of Michigan (archived here) and Rep Mike Waltz of Florida (archived here). All three are Republican.

Does the military maintain a “stockpile” of absentee ballots that could be “depleted?”

A Department of Defense spokesperson told Lead Stories in an email on November 4, 2024, that their policy is to respond “directly to the author(s)” of congressional correspondence but pointed us to several resources.

A 2015 video (archived here) produced by the Defense Department’s Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) (archived here) explains how a service member gets a federal write-in absentee ballot:

All you need is Internet access and a printer.

American voters living overseas typically request an absentee ballot from their home state first. They must make that request by the application deadline and mail it back before the ballot return deadline. Those deadlines differ from state to state.

If a service member has not received the absentee ballot from their state, the FVAP site helps them print out a Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (archived here). The service member is then advised on how to return the ballot (archived here) to their home state in time for the official vote count.

Here are the provided instructions, including about printing out the ballot:

(Source: FVAP.GOV screenshot taken on Mon Nov 4 17:33:46 2024 UTC)

The Defense Department spokesperson told Lead Stories 3,000 voting assistance officers are spread throughout the military to provide guidance (archived here) to any service member confused about the process. “The Department sends monthly emails to all service members notifying them of elections for federal office occurring in the next 90, 60, and 30 days with information on registering to vote and requesting an absentee ballot,” the spokesperson wrote.

The military also uses “expedited mail delivery service” to make sure those absentee ballots arrive on time.

Lead Stories contacted Rep. Mast’s office about the claim in the October 30, 2024, letter to Defense Secretary Austin. We will update this fact check if the congressman responds.

Additional Lead Stories fact checks of claims about the 2024 U.S. presidential election can be read here.