FedEx, voter group hope to ease ballot shipping woes

Seeking to alleviate a top concern for overseas absentee voters, FedEx will team up with a voter participation group and ship ballots for free or at heavy discounts this fall, the company announced this week.

FedEx called the initiative “a natural extension of our ongoing commitment to making strategic use of our physical and digital networks to meet the needs of people worldwide.”

{mosads}Overnight delivery from FedEx’s Asia/Pacific region will be free. It will cost $23 from Latin America; $18 from Canada; and $23.50 from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and India, a 70 percent discount in that region, a FedEx spokeswoman told The Hill. FedEx branches in 89 countries will participate.

FedEx is partnering with Overseas Vote Foundation (OVF) for the program, which it is calling "Express Your Vote." The groups announced the initiative Wednesday.

"The number one question we get around election time is: did my ballot arrive and did it get counted?" OVF President and CEO Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat told The Hill. Her organization has been dedicated to overseas voter registration and participation since 2005.

Overseas voters will be able to print FedEx forms and request ballot pickups on OVF’s website. FedEx will send confirmation emails when votes are delivered, and voters will have access to FedEx tracking tools via OVF's site, allowing them to monitor their ballots' voyages.

That, OVF’s Dzieduszycka-Suinat says, will give overseas voters "a level of confidence that really isn't otherwise provided in this system."

Participation and satisfaction among overseas voters have been flagged as problems by the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), an independent body created under the 2002 Help America Vote Act to review and guide federal election procedures.

Turnout was 5.5 percent in the 2006 midterm elections. Of the estimated 6 million eligible voters overseas, 16.5 percent requested a ballot and one third of the ballots requested were actually counted as votes, according to an EAC study. While EAC estimates that there are 6 million eligible overseas voters, other researchers estimate that number as low as 2 million, and the above percentages fluctuate under different totals.

EAC Chair Rosemary Rodriguez thinks the FedEx/OVF program could have a drastic impact, as slow mail is a top concern for overseas voters.

"If we can really get the word out it could be exponential," Rodriguez said. "It could really make a difference."

Standard mail often takes too long for ballots to be sent and returned in time, posing a significant obstacle to overseas votes being counted, Rodriguez added.

"It takes an average of about three weeks to ship a piece of mail overseas–I think the exact figure is 12 to 18 days," Rodriguez said. "Most ballots are mailed out 30 days — although the ideal is 45 days — before the election.”

"If you're at the top [time estimate] of 18 each way you're gonna miss your deadline," Rodriguez said.

In 2006, late arrival was the second most common reason for sent overseas ballots to be rejected, an EAC report found. Late arrivals ranked behind "other reason," which includes ballots that were unsigned, undated, or had no date of notary on the witness's signature.

Overseas voters are often uncertain their votes will be counted, leading to dissatisfaction and suppressed turnout, Rodriguez said. FedEx tracking and confirmation emails, she says, are what make the initiative so exciting.

The program comes at a time when overseas interest in the U.S. election, particularly among civilian ex-pats, could be at an all-time high. The Washington Post documented unprecedented interest in Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) among Americans overseas, and a Global Primary for overseas Democrats drew 20,000 votes, with Obama raking in 65 percent.

Overseas voters will be able to ship their ballots at the lowered rates between September 15 and October 29. Alabama will be the only state not to participate, as it requires overseas ballots to be sent via U.S. mail.

FedEx conducted a similar initiative in its Asia/Pacific region in 2004, with participation estimated at 3,000 to 4,000. Dzieduszycka-Suinat says she hopes for tens of thousands to participate this year.

"That [2004 effort] was without this level of worldwide coordination," Dzieduszycka-Suinat said. "Now here we are in 2008 and we've built upon that precedent."

Rodriguez hopes participation will be even better.

“If we could get a million overseas votes counted, that would be huge,” she said. If Rodriguez's wish comes true, counted overseas votes would triple from the 2006 midterms.

FedEx’s Federal Express PAC has donated between $1.3 million and $2.7 million a year to political candidates since 2000. It has given more to Republicans, though Democrats have taken an increasing share in recent years, gathering 46 percent of FedEx’s contributions in 2008, compared to 35 percent in 2000.