Absentee ballot request postcard

This is an Offical Election War Ballot request postcard printed by the Government Printing Office with airmail rate for the 1944 presidential elections. It is filled-in by a military service member requesting a ballot from the state of Alabama.

Members of the US military from all 48 states were able to vote absentee in the 1944 election thanks to an act of Congress. Both states and the War Ballot Commission produced materials such as ballot request postcards and return ballot envelopes for military personnel deployed around the United States and the globe. Some states also allowed merchant marines to vote absentee and personnel deployed with support organizations such as the Red Cross.

References:

Bamford, Tyler. “The Soldier Voting Act and Absentee Ballots in World War II.” The National WWII Museum. Modified October 19, 2020. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/soldier-voting-act-1942-absentee-ballots.

Carter, Russ W, and Military Postal History Society. War Ballots: Military Voting by Mail from the Civil War to WWII. Cypress, TX: Military Postal History Society, 2005

Inbody, Donald S. The Soldier Vote: War, Politics, and the Ballot in America. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

Manning, Molly Guptill. "Fighting to Lose the Vote: How the Solider Voting Acts of 1942 and 1944 Disenfranchised America's Armed Forces." New York University Journal of Legislation and Public Policy, Vol. 19, Issue 2 (2016), pp. 335-378. https://digitalcommons.nyls.edu/fac_articles_chapters/1170/.

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