THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 12, 1997 TAG: 9702110440
SECTION: MILITARY NEWS PAGE: A16 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Staff report
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: 38 lines
Each year, thousands of military people assigned to Hampton Roads find themselves deployed elsewhere when Election Day rolls around. Many don't vote, forgetting to get their absentee ballots in on time or just deciding not to bother.
But what if the troops and military families who do vote absentee suddenly were told they could not?
That's what could happen in a Texas county along the Rio Grande, where hundreds of personnel assigned to Laughlin Air Force Base are fighting a lawsuit that seeks to invalidate absentee ballots they cast last fall.
Virginia's U.S. senators, Charles S. Robb and John W. Warner, are among 58 who've asked the Justice Department to join the battle on the troops' behalf.
The case centers on claims by the Texas Rural Legal Aid Society that the military absentees shouldn't be considered residents of Val Verde County because they don't intend to return. Many have kept their registration in the county, legal aid lawyers suggest, only because Texas is one of a handful of states with no income tax.
The group believes the absentee voters, virtually all of them white or African-American, diluted the voting strength of permanent residents, keeping the mostly Hispanic community from electing Hispanics to office.
U.S. District Judge Fred Biery has barred three recently-elected local officials, including a retired Air Force master sergeant, from taking office while the case is pending.
The suit ``sets a disturbing precedent across this nation about the rights of men and women who serve in our armed forces,'' the senators said in a recent letter to Attorney General Janet Reno.
They urged her to defend ``a service member's right to determine where he or she chooses to call home.''
KEYWORDS: VOTING RIGHTS ABSENTEE BALLOTS