Membership

Military Officers’ Campaign Looks to Get Military Families to the Voting Booth

The Military Officers Association of America, which ran a voter education campaign targeted at active-duty military in 2016, is ramping things up again for the 2018 election through its Military Family Initiative arm.

The 2018 midterm elections are looking particularly pivotal this time around, and no matter your political leanings, having the resources to vote are critical.

And some associations are stepping up to educate voters and help them get to to the polls. Case in point: The Military Officers Association of America (MOAA) has been running a three-phase project in recent years called the Military Voter Education Project, with the goal of making voting resources available to soldiers and their families.

The latest portion of the project, announced this week, focuses on the family part. Through its Military Family Initiative (MMFI), MOAA is launching a fresh voter outreach campaign to teach its audience about the Federal Voting Assistance Program, along with the process of absentee voting.

It includes a website guide for absentee voters—which, beyond helping to show service members and their families how to vote, also gives them free basic membership in MOAA, depending on eligibility. The association says it will update the experience ahead of the 2018 election and will more specifically target active-duty voters. After the election, MOAA will have its members take a post-election survey about how their voting experience went and then use that data to further improve the voting process in future years, says MMFI Executive Director Amanda Bainton.

“The foundation’s mission is to offer programs and services, both nationally and through MOAA councils and chapters, to ensure our nation’s military families enjoy a quality of life they’ve earned through their service,” Bainton said in a news release. “We believe this voter education campaign is important because it provides valuable information to military absentee voters and empowers military families to take an active role in shaping their future as American citizens.”

MOAA’s voting campaign is being supported with a series of grants from the Democracy Fund, a bipartisan organization that aims to make it easier for potential voters to actually do so.

(DanielBendjy/E+/Getty Images Plus)

Ernie Smith

By Ernie Smith

Ernie Smith is a former senior editor for Associations Now. MORE

Got an article tip for us? Contact us and let us know!


Comments