The Service Vote in the Elections of 1944

One of the most controversial legislative matters considered by the Seventy-eighth Congress was the question of whether or not Congress should simplify voting procedures for service men and women. The popular feeling of the nation strongly favored giving the armed forces every opportunity to vote, not inconsistent with the necessities of war. The controversy in Congress was not restricted entirely to the constitutional question of whether or not Congress had the legal power to provide soldiers with a federal ballot by which they could vote for president, vice-president, representatives, and senators, but in addition, it raised social and political questions of great magnitude. The political significance of the service vote became increasingly apparent when the Gallup Poll announced on December 4, 1943, that the soldier vote, which favored President Franklin D. Roosevelt by 61 per cent, could break the apparent even division of the electorate between the two parties and assure Roosevelt of reëlection. The social significance of liberal federal legislation on the issue was obvious, since numerous states have suffrage laws to prevent the practice of universal suffrage.