Wisconsin military personnel and citizens overseas will receive absentee ballots earlier this election season after a federal judge approved a new agreement between the Government Accountability Board and the U.S. Department of Justice Wednesday.

The GAB and the DOJ filed the agreement in court Friday establishing how the state would strive to adhere to new voting laws so all overseas votes cast by Wisconsin citizens are counted.

Overseas voters must receive absentee ballots by Oct. 1 and election officials will count the ballots until Nov. 19, according to the agreement.

The Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act will intend to safeguard the voting rights of military personnel and their families living overseas by requiring election officials to deliver absentee ballots 45 days prior to the general election.

DOJ has mandated voters send all of this years’ ballots by September 18 unless otherwise agreed upon with the department.

The MOVE Act was initially passed because several states had difficulties counting absentee ballots from overseas voters in time, but Wisconsin was not one of the states that first prompted the law change, said Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

Before the new agreement, the GAB was able to count overseas absentee ballots for 10 days after the election, but overseas voters had to have ballots back by Nov. 2, said Reid Magney, spokesperson for the GAB.

Wisconsin normally uses electronic transmissions of ballots and e-mails them to voters overseas who then e-mail them back, a system which allowed Wisconsin to count the ballots effectively, McCabe said.

“Some states were still putting ballots in the mail and sending them overseas, and then they would have to be put back in the mail and sent back,” McCabe said. “It really wasn’t Wisconsin that created the concern behind the federal law, but Wisconsin became impacted by that law because we have a September primary and the time line was very tight.”

Although the GAB has not finalized the general election ballots because results from Tuesday’s primary election are not yet official, the office will send ballots overseas by Oct. 1 at the latest, Magney said.

As a result, overseas voters will have more time to cast their votes so both types of voters will be treated equally, Magney added.

Although the agreement with the DOJ is an acceptable interim solution, the real problem may be Wisconsin’s late primary.

“Wisconsin has to address the issue whether a September primary is acceptable given this federal law. One of the options would be to push this primary back to August, but that creates a longer campaign season, and that’s the last thing voters want,” McCabe said.

Wisconsin originally applied for a waiver to become exempt from the law, but the Department of Defense denied the request Aug. 27.

DoD granted waivers based on how well states could demonstrate plans on how to make sure overseas votes were efficiently and accurately counted.