and posters. there needs to be more service member to service member conversations about voting. and in that regard, my organization, the michigan center for election law has developed one program that we're implementing on the local level, recognizing that in engaging voters and educating voters, sometimes the best method is through people they know, people they trust. and to get veterans who recently returned from eof or oif assignments in michigan to reach out to those serving actively, and encourage them to vote, reaching out on facebook, reaching out through electronic means, talking about the issues, encouraging them to vote, we're launching that program for 2012, and we hope that will be an effective way of encouraging the relevance of voting in addition to making the mechanics work better. >> well, thank you. the term culture keeps coming up. that this maybe isn't, with all due respect, the military maybe isn't a culture which is totally

embracing of that whole idea of getting out the vote. maybe it isn't the highest priority. the question we can talk about, and i'm sure we will continue to talk about, is there a problem with the methodology we used to measure what we're doing, or are we really making progress in a culture that is rather tough. i mean, tom, you referenced that as well. this is a tough sled. this isn't like going down to church bizarre and saying here, this is something you need to do. these are people that are in very stressful situations. go ahead. >> we can make, and i think it is our job as advocates to make the ability to vote as easily as possible for these people. but we can't make them vote. we tend to forget also, i think what candace pointed out is one of the most significant things we've said. military voters aren't necessarily voting where they live. i did because i was a californian and i happened to be stationed in california. so it was pretty easy for me. but if you're voting remotely, it's -- the elections aren't about president, senator, or congressman.

in fact, those are three ballots on a ballot. that's usually about a page and a half, two pages long. there are local initiatives, local races, there is all sorts of stuff. and if you're not living in your hometown or your area, you know exactly nothing about that. and it is damn hard to find that unless you're going to look for it. you know, i'm 21-year-old e-4. i'm worried about training myself so i don't get myself killed the next time i go overseas. and, you know, it's not a presidential election. so there is virtually no major media coverage. i'm living in a remote area. and i don't know what propositions 8 through 15 are. i'm going to get this whole ballot. and there might be one person's name i recognize because, you know, it's just not what i'm worried about. to the point about the dod's implementation. i don't know. maybe i've been in d.c. too long, but 13 months for the implementation of a dod program that doesn't have to do with direct combat, pretty damn

impressive. i don't know. i've been doing this for a little while. and i've had helped pass some bills that have had very serious programs the dod needed, things like mandatory mental health screenings, things that are life changing. if they got those implemented in 13 months, they get a damn medal. that's not too bad for them. >> too bad you're not active daoud duty anymore. >> maybe that's a statement on the problems at the dod internally generally. but we've only had one integration. let's not -- let's not nip at everyone's heels just because we've tried this new thing out once. let's focus on, you know, how do we make it as easy as humanely possible so these people can choose to make an informed decision or not. that's about as simple as we need it. >> a couple of things i would add to that. first of all, we do notice that our military service members and our spouses do register to vote, in very high numbers. about 85% for military service members, 83% for our spouses.

so there is at least an engagement there to begin with. now the part of the process is the moving all the time. this happens within our military communities. we're moving stateside, we're moving overseas, we're going back and forth. as tom pointed out, as we're moving, it's not the first thing on people's mind. you can't change it until you get to your new duty station anyway. because most of us don't know where we're going to be living until we get there, find a house, get settled on base, wherever we might be living. so you can't lead this discussion and say this is going to be one of the things i do before i go. you have to wait until you get there. and then once you're in your new duty station, there are a lot of things going on that you're trying to get settled, get your kids in schools. these are the focuses for families. but having said that, i think part of the problem what i see for families is that as tom pointed out, trying to get into the local part of your elections, understanding who to really vote for, because we want

to be informed, we're not going to make an uninformed vote. so being able to push that information to us, being able to e-mail that to us so it's in front of us. i think that would help us a great deal. one of the problems too that we see with military families is that they want to know if they've gone through all of this, that not only is their vote received, but it's counted. we don't have assurances. i mean, when you go into a voting place, you either do the old-fashioned paper ballot and you fill it out and you put it in the slot. or you do the electronic one. now do you know whether it's been counted? no. but you're certainly hopeful that it is, that you're there in a polling place. but when you're somewhere else and overseas and you fill out that ballot and send it back in, you no way of knowing whether it's been received. we can buy things online and we get a push immediately that says

thank you for your purchase. and by the way, it will be sent in two days. if you send a ballot, why don't we have ways to be able to let our voters know oui received it. thank you very much. now the counting i think is a harder problem. but at least let military families know that they have received it. that their efforts are not in vain. i think that will help with voter turn youth for our absentee votes as well, if they really think it matters. >> thank you. bob. why don't you talk a little bit about the methodology about the report in the survey. i know there are some questions out here. i'm sure there are questions out here. we'll go to them and all of us can respond to the questions. >> candace, first, one of the big things about the military and overseas empowerment act is it did require the states to have a ballot tracker for anyone to go and make sure their ballot had been received and -- they can't say whether it's been counted or not because they separate the absentee ballot from the identity before they do

the canvassing. but they can at least good online and link them all to the state bestate websites. they can go online and see if their ballot has been received or not. in the back, if we could come up with my slide number 8. we'll talk about some of the methodology issues. i think there is an important element here there is a hypothesis that the data is sacrosanct, and a survey by the very nature of the survey and the statistical sample that is done and the waiting that is done -- are we going to be able to bring that up at all? so we also at ff did a survey of the local election officials. in 2008 and 2010, we compared the responses that those local election officials gave to ff to the exact same question that the election assistance commission also asked them in 2008 and 2010. in 2008, 23% of the local election officials answered both our survey and theirs.

this is in the lower right-hand corner. and we found that the answers that those same local election officials gave to the exact same question varied by 56,000. in 2010, the exact same questions that were answered by 33% of the election officials between the eac and us varied by 54,000. now if we can go to the next slide, slide 9. so there is this attitude that the eac and the election assistance commission and federal voting assistance program data is contradictory. it is not. it is complimentary. if you look down at the lower right-hand corner, you see that when we survey the local election officials, we ask them how many military and overseas ballots you have returned -- excuse me, military ballots. they said 118,000 to us. they said 107,000 to the elections assistances commission. probably within the statistical margins of error.

you see how many active duty military personnel they voted and the third is total voted. about a third of the military and about 3/4 -- excuse me, about 3/5 of the spouses actually vote in person at the polling place. so you subtract that up. and then a number of these voters are actually within 50 miles of their home. so they're not absentee. they're supposed to show up at the polling place. but for whatever reason, they're absent, they request a regular about a tee ballot. subtract that out. and then we found about 37% of the military and upwards of about 77% of the military spouses used the state and local form to request their absentee ballot. most states which do not allow you to designate yourself as a military voter on the state and local form, and you subtract that out. and then you subtract out the federal write-in absentee ballots. and you come up with a total number of about 89,000. so from our perspective, it's not that the eac data is in

contradiction to the ff data, it's that the eac data is a subset of the ff data. and so i think that's an important element. on the groove criticism about our nonresponse bias, that's was one of the first things i ininstituted and we had a nonresponse bias analysis. and what it determined was in fact o atistical waiting methodology countered the nonresponse bias that would otherwise be inherent. when we talked about moving around a lot, this is why weve towards more electronic access to ballots is so important. in my time in the military, i've been recalled active duty four times since 9/11. and even in those individual recalls, i've had two or three addresses. but i've always had robert.h..carey@navy.mil. i've had that. that's never going to change. go one step further.

post the ballots online. you post the ballots online, anyone can access them at any time. not just when they get to their e-mail address, but whenever they want. hence our grant program to help the states post these ballots online. as far as the insulation voting assistance offices, we actually have stated that the services need to place these in well trafficked areas. so like personnel support detachments, fleet family support centers. i was just down at the naval air station for reserve duty. and it was at the pass and id office. why? because it's outside the gate and anyone can get access to it. but fundamentally, you know, the department has been consistent. we should be doing this at the installation level. we should be doing this at the unit level. that's where we do all the rest of our administrative and training work. we should be doing this at the unit level. we can do all the stuff that is called for to move that more efficiently, with higher compliance, and much cheaper by doing it at the unit level. what you're -- by forcing this to happen at the installation

level, what we're essentially saying is okay, seaman smith, i don't just reported aboard your ship. now there is 63 ships at naval station norfolk, and you're an 18-year-old kid and you don't have a car. so you need to leave your ship, which has a unit voting assistance officer on it, go down, catch the bus, travel a half hour to the personnel support detachment, go in there, fill out the exact same form that your unit voting assistance officer would have been able to do for you on board the ship. wait for the bus again, come back to the ship. meanwhile, your chief petty officer is saying where have you been? why aren't you working? i mean, this is just -- we are setting ourselves up for failure by forcing us to do all this at the installation level when we have 14,000 unit voting assistance officers already who i've encouraged them to say go to ff.gov. don't fill out the paper form. sit them down at a computer. you have a printer on board the

ship. you have a printer at the unit. >> we're going to call a cloture vote in a minute. >> okay. >> quick question. i think tracking rates of voter turnout is good. it's something we should absolutely do. but rates of voter turnout don't necessarily follow from ease of the program. >> true. >> they certainly can be related. so are there plans to not necessarily look at voter turnout as your metric, but actual implementation ease of voting. >> yeah. >> and so we also in our survey, we ask them how interested are you in voting? do you plan to vote? and then we correlate to how they actually did vote. and we're trying to find a comparable civilian measure to be able to find that as well. and we also ask them how did you find these systems. surprisingly, we found the fast majority of dish unsurprisingly we found the vast majority of military personnel said they wanted to receive their ballot electronically. a large portion said they wanted

to return their ballot by mail. by mail. >> you're agreeing with that? >> yeah. but i would just add another element here. one i think closer attention on the stateside of things and the actual election administration officials at the local level. and evaluating not just those service members' attitudes, but their attitudes as well. we've been told things in trying to vote as well, i guess it just didn't work out for you this time. and things like that that are not the message perhaps that -- >> true, definitely true. >> but the second piece, i underscore the need for more information about particularly local election campaigns and state election campaigns, and the methods of providing that. but also the physical presence on the base and on the local level. not just of an individual officer, but of an actual kiosk, or something of that sort. in some view, it would be great to have an actual polling place at the base where you could actually go and cast your ballot

and see it counted as opposed to dropping it in the mailbox or handing it to someone else to transmit back for you. i think in some ways our resistance to that is financial as well as local officials not fully embracing that concept. but i hope we can move in that direction, because when we talk about increasing the relevance and meaning of voting, as you know when you're on the base, you're very disconnected from your state. a and to actually feel like, just like you feel like there is a presence of your country in a foreign country, that there is a presence of your state, a polling place, a poll worker, a kiosk in which you can return your vote i think can be a critical way. and i know the alabama secretary of state, beth chapman and others have explored that option. it's something that i think can increase one's connectivity to the political process in addition to the benefits from the mechanical standpoint. >> yeah. let's get ready to have some audience participation. one of the things i note is we've identified issues with regard to how we measure. we've identified that there needs to be more coordination,

states to under the move act. we've all got that. i guess what i am less interested in is focusing on our differences, because i don't think there they're as great as we think they are, rather than focusing on arriving at a consensus as to how we resolve those differences, and can you continue to improve what it is we need to continue to improve. so there are questions. >> i have a question. >> can you ask a question, susan? >> is it on? okay. i'd like one or two-sentence answer on this from the panelists if you have one. what could voting organizations, what could the people in this room do in the next 90 days to improve military voter participation in 2012? ideas? >> all right. we will impose the short answer. start at that end. >> two things. one, put on your website information about the local elections in your area.

just basic information from judicial elections as far down the state as you can go, accessible information from the federal levels if possible. but the state information about the candidates, the campaigns, the ballot questions, those sorts of things is critical. and then utilize social networks to use things like veteran to veteran connectivity to those serving abroad or overseas to encourage them to vote and enable that communication about the importance of the election. >> hans? >> i would -- i would come up with two things. one on the issue of convincing military folks overseas. and perhaps they need to vote. look. there are nonpartisan veterans groups like veterans of foreign wars who have access to military installations. and the rules that prevent them from being able to conduct voter registration drives is something that dod ought to relax. now i'm not saying that all groups should have access to these bases. but those veterans groups that

have access should be able to if they want to do a voter registration drive at a base commissary. i don't see any reason why that can't be done. the second thing, and that is from a legal standpoint, the one difference between -- uacaba. by the way, we had a texas judge. he kept referring to it as avocado. but one of the things that uacava does not have, which the voting rights act has, which the national registration act has is that those laws can be enforced by the justice department. but if the justice department isn't enforcing them, you have a private right of action. and uacava, unlike these other voting right statues does not have a private right of action. and, you know, i could talk up here for a long time about many of the mistakes doj made during the 2010 election and things they didn't do. but the point is, private groups

should be able to help members of the military sue states and others when they don't comply with the law. and doj is sitting on its hands and not doing what it should do. and there is actually a bill that was introduced in the senate on this. but it hasn't gone anywhere. >> it's access and information. if you can't access the ability to register to vote and the information in your district in under 60 seconds, you failed because it ain't going to happen. so you have to get them information and access. they have to be -- and i think it's a great idea. voter registration drives on base there is lots of organizations that can do it. you should be able to access how you need to register to vote. not necessarily go through the whole process, but how, and what people are voting on at home. and if it's over 60 seconds, i can tell you right now, especially those 18 to 24-year-olds, it ain't happening. i can order a pizza in ten seconds from my phone right now.

and get it delivered probably before we leave here. that's the level of customer service. you got to understand that we -- this younger generation, my generation of vets, we access information differently. we access the world. we expect the world to interact with us the way we interact with it. and if you're looking at your plans, think like that. you got to think innovatively. >> candace? >> i think getting the ballots to our military service members and their families in a timely manner, i understand that with the 45 days from the move act that a lot has been done to try to do that. but the problem is some of our lists are still not cleaned up. so we send all of these out. they're still not being received by the military service member or the spouse. more needs to be done to make sure that we really do have the correct address, the onus needs to also be on the service member and the family member to make sure that they're doing that when they move. but i think this is something

also that our election officials can work to help as well. to making sure that they have appropriate dresses that we're getting these in our military and service families' hands so that they can return them on time. >> mr. carey? >> i'll try to make this hemingwayesque single sentence. what can you do in the next 90 days? first, link to feap.gov. why? because we're trying to do exactly what you're talking about. we're trying to take the entire process, make it seamless, quick, intuitive and easy. we're not driving folks to a federal system. if a state has online registration, we're driving that person to the online registration. if the state has an online ballot delivery system, we drive them to that state's online delivery system there is no pride of ownership. frankly, my ultimate goal is to put ff out of business because the states have the

infrastructure in place and they don't need us anymore. second, sent over legislation last session to congress specifically asking for that. third, the administration also asks that the -- with the move act, the allowance that ballots will be automatically transmitted for two election cycles was repealed. now to simply for a single calendar year and only for military personnel. we believe that should it be for both military and overseas citizens, and for the full election cycle. i understand two election cycles may be too long. i think we need to look at a full election cycle. and fourth, the federal voting assistance program and overseas vote foundation working closely with the uniform law foundation on developing a standardized language across all of the states. it's called the uniform military and overseas voter act. i think that could be a big element in order to be able to reduce that nine-inch binder down to, you know, ten pages. because the fact of the matter is that within individual states, you'll have exceedingly

different rules for different elections for the exact same federal form. so we need to get those things standardized and at the uniform law commission, kieran mullin is here if you want to talk to him and help on that. >> next question. >> as a result of the 2010 census, the state legislatures are redrawing not only congressional district lines, but also lines for the state house and state senate. until those new lines are made certain and any litigation about that is resolved, how is the local elected official going to mail out ballots? they don't know what ballot the voter is entitled to. is there a way to ensure that litigation about redistricting or ballot access does not result in breechaches of the 40-day ru? >> states can move back their election. >> i think the answer to your question is no. >> presidential election.

>> no. but that's an issue that election officials and courts are aware of. because, in fact -- i mean i was at the supreme court when texas was there recently. oral arguments about the litigation they have over the redistricting. and one of the issues that was discussed there was a long lead time now needed to get ballots sent and get them out, at least 45 days before. and that's why, for example, that particular case. you know, right now texas's primaries are set for april 6th. but they're still in court trying to get their redistricting plans done. so it's highly doubtful that they're going to have a primary on the 6th because they'll never be able to meet that deadline. >> i'm getting the cane on my neck now from susan to get off. i'm going to make the observation before we close and that is that there may be some methodology problems here, or disagreements. there are some things that we need to do to get better. but can you imagine having this conversation as constructed four

years ago? to where we are now today. so i think it's really incumbent on all these people who are really, really smart people and involved people we can make this better. we are making it better. and i think that's what we really need to focus on in the 2012 time frame, is making our military voters, increasing the's with which they can participate in this fundamental right. i want to thank you all for participating. thank you, susan, for having it. >> thank you. [ applause ] >> coming up, several programs on the department of defense budget. starting with a look at some of the automatic cuts set to take effect january 2nd, 2013. also a couple of briefs looking at the army and air force budgets. sunday on newsmakers, leonard curry on his state's upcoming primary. he also talks about how republican presidential candidates are conducting their florida campaigns. that's at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00

p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span radio and c-span.org. april 15th, 2010, i had arrived in paris, walked into the hotel -- the hotel lobby, met general mcchrystal for the first time. and he looked at me and he said so you're the rolling stone guy. i don't care about the article. i just want to be on the cover. >> michael hastings wrote about the commander of u.s. and nato forces in afghanistan in the june 2010 issue of "rolling stone." >> i said, well, sir, i think it's between you and lady gaga. you know, i was just making -- trying to make some joke, not knowing lady gaga was actually going to be on the cover. general mcchrystal replied just put me and lady gaga in a heart-shaped tub. and i thought this is a different kind of general. this is going to be a different kind of story. >> but just several months later as a result of the article, general mcchrystal had been fired. michael hastings continues the

story and talks about his new book "the operators," sunday night at 8 eastern on c-span's q&a. the center for strategic and international studies held a discussion friday on the newly released fiscal year 2013 defense budget. secretary panetta unveiled the $525 billion package with an additional request of $88.4 billion for overseas operations yesterday. defense and budget analysts examined the numbers and expressed some concerns. this is about 90 minutes. >> okay. hey, paul. how are you? okay, ladies and gentlemen, we want -- we want to get started. and i want to say thank you for coming out on a rainy friday. normally this would produce about, you know, seven people that are retired and don't have anything else to do. it's kind of the way they fill up their day by going to think tank events. but this looks like it's a

12-step recovery team that has been through this before. and the questions will we get it right or better this time, you know. i'm john hamre here at cisis. i want to thank you for coming. i feel like that groundhog movie, you know. woken up again and here we are. this has been promised for several years. but it looks like now we're there. and the question is are we going to do it better this time than we did the last time? and everybody says we won't do that again. or are we going to make the same mistake all over again. it isn't that people choose to make mistakes. it's that the dynamic that governs all of the complex actions that brings several

hundred,000 people together to make choices produces outcomes. and the question is can we with thought and direction and intelligence supersede that? and we're at the front end of trying to think that through. we need to do that, thinking that through with all of you. we saw the first kind of details here yesterday. lots more yet to unfold. i think we're really just in the front end of this. we do see the large central direction. large central direction where this is heading. and it is grounded in a strategy that i think has fairly broad consensus in town and in the country. but what all budgets, you know, they have to have a certain policy coherence at the top. but then the details really matter. you know, they really matter. that's where we're now starting to