The US Justice Department officials said that the department wants a federal judge to force the state of Vermont to comply with the Uniformed Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act which has been violated. They said that the state was being sued for violating the law, which requires states to tabulate the votes cast by military personnel and others who are overseas on Election Day.

In a statement, the Justice Department said: “Vermont and Secretary of State, Deborah Markowitz, are responsible for collecting and reporting the number of military voters and overseas citizens, who are sent ballots, return them and have them successfully cast in each federal general election.”

The legal papers alleged: “Vermont has failed to fulfill this important obligation ever since it became law in the Help America Vote Act of 2002.”

Acting head of the Civil Rights Division, Grace Chung Becker, said the information is critical to determining that U.S. citizens overseas have “an effective opportunity to have their votes counted.”

Though the lawsuit does not charge that Vermont has kept members of the military from voting, it asks for an admission from the state that it broke the law, and wants a judge to issue “an injunction against any future noncompliance.”

Clarifying the issue, Markowitz, a Democrat, told the Associated Press that her office failed to comply with the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act in 2006 because they did not receive the federal government’s survey before they distributed ballots. She added that in 2006 the Justice Department sent its survey to Vermont in mid-October, after absentee ballots were sent to town clerks and local election officials.

The Secretary of State also said this year local election officials were completing the survey. Saying that she had not seen the federal complaint, she remarked: “It’s puzzling to me why they are wasting federal resources on what essentially is a paperwork snafu for a new law.”