Where's California's top elections official? If you guessed that she was in Baghdad earlier today, en route to Kuwait and then off to a location undisclosed by the Department of Defense, you'd be correct.
Bowen, the California secretary of state (a job that normally entails no foreign-government relations), is one of five state elections officials traveling with the Department of Defense in the Middle East to examine the voting process for troops.
More than 70,000 California voters serve in the military and or live overseas.
After riding a C-130 to Baghdad, Bowen dialed into a conference call to share the details of her trip, where she said she's studying, "how we can work better with the military to make voting easier... for overseas voters."
"I've been encouraging the many Californians I've met to get their ballots in," Bowen said.
She even "got to watch one of our officers post her vote by mail ballot today," she said.
Bowen's office said the Department of Defense (which is paying for the trip) organized the mission for the elections officials from five states, including Florida, Indiana, Mississippi, and Pennsylvania.
She'll continue to travel in the Middle East today, but said she couldn't share just where.
Overall, Bowen concluded, "a very interesting and dusty trip."
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