THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 19, 1994 TAG: 9410190469
SECTION: MILITARY NEWS PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHARLENE CASON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 108 lines
If past trends hold true, sailors in Hampton Roads will be casting ballots in the November elections in a proportion greater than the population as a whole. But they are just as likely to be helping decide the fate of Ted Kennedy, Mario Cuomo or Jeb Bush as they are of Ollie North or Chuck Robb.
A post card instead of the voting booth is how many local sailors are making their voices heard: The universal card brings them an absentee ballot from their legal place of residence - the state where they pay taxes - and often that's outside Virginia.
Teaching sailors how to vote, and about their civic responsibility to do so, is a task that falls to designated voting officers. With one in every single Navy command, they are part of a concerted Navy get-out-the-vote effort that dates back to 1967.
The effort contributes to high voter turnout rates in the military - 80.6 percent in the 1992 presidential election compared with 62 percent among civilians, according to the Bureau of Navy Personnel in Washington.
The Navy faces some obstacles in persuading its members to vote: Many have just turned of voting age and have no tradition of casting a ballot; many are stationed far from their legal residence and have little connection with it; and many are at sea, away from the campaign fervor that helps get out the vote.
``Historically, sailors have been nomads, lost in the election process,'' said Capt. Christopher Weaver, commanding officer of Norfolk Naval Station. ``And demographics of the Navy show that sailors tend to be young, not in the habit of getting into the voting process.''
But the Navy, along with state and local officials, also work hard to make casting ballots easier for military personnel.
Spreading the word about the universal post card is one example. The cards are available from Navy voting officers and are accepted in all 50 states, though each treats them differently.
To help personnel negotiate the election rules, voting officers in the Navy keep handy the Voting Assistance Guide 1994-95, which has information on voting regulations in every state.
It's too late to register to vote in Virginia, but not in some other states. Navy personnel can conmtact their command's voting officers, whose names often are listed in the daily ``plan of the day'' and are available from department heads or command master chiefs.
Voting officers are more than information stations; they are agitators. At the naval station this year, Petty Officer 1st Class Carol Hughes, a Navy paralegal, helped coordinate interviews in which every one of the station's 1,058 sailors were asked whether they wanted to register to vote.
For those who said no, Hughes talked up civic duty.
``We try to maintain a nonpartisan, very neutral position on who they vote for, but we did tell them that the next people in office will decide our rights, our benefits and where we'll be sent next. We told them, if they want change, they have to fight for it,'' Hughes said. ``This is just another way the military takes care of its own.''
In addition to the Navy, registrars' offices in Norfolk, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Suffolk all have campaigns targeting potential military voters.
Since state law requires all voter registration sites to be open to the public, booths were set up outside military installations, such as Oceana Naval Air Station and Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth. And there is a permanent voter registration site inside the Navy Welcome Center in Norfolk.
``We bend over backwards to help the military,'' said Virginia Beach registrar Marlene Hager. Her office has trained more than 500 military voting assistance officers to help active-duty service members at their bases, and it includes one full-time employee who handles military and out-of-state registrations and absentee ballots.
Hager said that, because of deployments, 471 active-duty service members in Virginia Beach had already cast their votes in the Senate race between incumbent Charles S. Robb and Oliver L. North. She expects at least that many more absentee ballots to come in in the next three weeks.
``We're targeting the young sailor and the disenfranchised,'' added Weaver. ``We tell them they've earned the right to complain if they've gotten involved. If they don't vote, they really shouldn't complain.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by CARL CASON
Petty Officer 1st Class Carol Hughes headed Norfolk Naval Station's
voter registration drive, which contacted 1,058 sailors.
GETTING OUT THE VOTE
Results of the recent voter registration campaign conducted at
Norfolk Naval Station:
1,058 service members were contacted.
397 registered at the time they were interviewed.
222 were already registered in their home state
303 did not want to register
128 were unmavailable, some at sea
8 were not U.S. citizens.
Fewer than six were Virginia residents.
68 percent are eligible to vote in one of the 50 states.
KEYWORDS: VOTING U.S. NAVY
by CNB