The Roosevelt administration tried to federalize voting in 1944

The United States had about 9.2m service personnel of voting age that year, dispersed all over the world

Once, the US army had organized units by home state but by WW2, that was no longer true

One report had it that a US battalion in Italy in 1944 included men from 35 different states

So even though 45 states had absentee voting, state-distributed absentee ballots would have been a logistical nightmare

Congress in 1942 adopted a law asking each state's secretary of state to prepare a war ballot to overseas electors

Although very small numbers of servicemen navigated the business of seeking out ballots for an off-year election, the law is interesting for one reason:

It waived poll-tax and voter registration requirements for servicemen

So the federal government was using emergency powers to make voting easier

In 1944, Roosevelt advocated a similar strong federal measure, creating a bipartisan national commission that would distribute blank ballots to US personnel—military or civilian—overseas

It too set aside any state poll taxes.

A coalition of Republicans and southern Democrats opposed the bill because it would have increased voting, and specifically voting by black citizens

Roosevelt condemned them for perpetrating "a fraud on the soldiers and sailors and marines" fighting for the country

He may have shifted some southern Democrats, but not enough

The bill as passed required states to authorize use of the federal ballot and overseas voters to apply by 9/1/44 for a state absentee ballot and receive one by 10/1/44

So there was a federal ballot in 1944

but only 20 states allowed it and only 108k or so were cast (of 2.8m or so absentee ballots from servicemen)

Roosevelt, of course, won the vote—and the Democrats further cemented the allegiance of black voters who knew the national party stood with their right to vote

that was after all the same year Thurgood Marshall and William Hastie, for the NAACP LDF, successfully argued Smith v. Allwright using a case for federal regulation of primaries argued by the Roosevelt Justice department

(there’s plenty on the service vote in Katznelson, FEAR ITSELF)