Photo by Shelley Hanson Ohio County Elections Coordinator Toni Chieffalo demonstrates how she would fax an optical scan ballot overseas to a soldier. The new method of voting was approved by the West Virginia Legislature.

WHEELING — While swabbing the deck at sea, returning enemy fire in downtown Baghdad or catching some shut-eye in a rolling Humvee, finding time to also vote may fall off a soldier’s to-do list.

And for others, remembering to mail an absentee voting ballot 6,280 miles from Baghdad to Wheeling on time may seem unreasonable; being a soldier is hard enough.

With this in mind, state and local officials want to make military members’ voting experience a little easier. Thanks to a new state law, participating West Virginia counties can offer voting by fax machine to soldiers overseas or in the U.S.

Ohio County Elections Coordinator Toni Chieffalo said the Department of Defense serves as the go-between for the county elections board and soldier. The county faxes or mails an optical scan ballot to DOD officials, who then pass it on to the soldier to complete.

Unlike electronic voting via touchscreen, optical scan ballots have dots that filled in with pencil by the voter. The ballots are then fed into a machine to be read.

Since the soldier’s optical scan ballot will be seen by more than one person, he or she must sign a waiver stating they understand their ballot is not a secret one, Chieffalo said.

The DOD then faxes the completed ballot back to county. The deadline for submission is 7:30 p.m. the day of the election.