Evaluating Voting Policy Success: Aggregate Outcomes

As described in Chapter 3, the historical development of military and overseas voting policy is best characterized as a series of legislation created in response to a galvanizing event, such as war, a presidential election, or pressure from outside groups. Very few of these policies were developed in the context of data-driven reform, but were rather supported (or not) based on partisan preferences. The American Political Science Association (APSA) report of 1952 and the Federal Voting Assistance Act of 1955 represent an important exception, and a turning point in the development of public policy. However, it would take another 55 years before enough data were available to enable truly data-driven reform, and in 2009, Congress passed the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act in the wake of the statistics and data accessible after the 2008 presidential election.