Nearly two thirds of all active-duty military personnel will require absentee ballots in order to vote in the upcoming 2012 presidential election, yet hardly any have requested their ballots. The Pentagon has been trying to increase voter assistance for active military personnel with initiatives such as social media outreach, making call centers available, and establishing more voting assistance offices. The director of the Federal Voting Assistance Program explains that "voting assistance for our absentee military and overseas citizen voters has never been better," yet only 2% of active military personnel from Virginia, for example, have ordered absentee ballots, a far smaller proportion than in previous years.
The marginal cost of voting keeps getting lowered for those in the military who would need absentee ballots, but it hasn't been enough to increase or even hold constant the proportion of military absentee voters. The initiatives, such as adding more voting assistance offices, to make voting easier, have reduced the time and effort one needs to take to request an absentee ballot and vote. If we agree that the marginal cost of voting is decreasing, then since the voting turnout is also decreasing, this must indicate that the perceived marginal benefit of voting is decreasing even more than the marginal cost. This could be the case if active military believe that there is even a smaller probability now than in previous elections of their vote making a difference. Additionally, the marginal benefit could be decreasing if they don't believe there is as much of a potential difference to their future welfare between the two candidates. Alternatively, as an economist might explain the phenomenon, active military personnel may just be starting to think about their vote more logically, now beginning to realize that the marginal cost of casting their vote far outweighs the marginal benefit.
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