Back in the 2004 presidential election nearly one in four ballots cast by troops serving overseas were invalidated because of paperwork errors, missed deadlines or other administrative snafus.

So it's good news to hear today from the U.S. Election Assistance Program that nearly 96 percent of the overseas military votes cast in the 2008 contest were counted, thanks to better systems and changes in states' election laws.

The report to Congress notes that voter participation overseas was significantly higher in 2008 than 2006 (not a surprise, since midterm elections generally attract smaller crowds) but that both the percentage of ballots returned by military voters (67 percent) and the percent counted increased.

Timing was still the biggest culprit for rejected ballots; Nearly 44 percent of all votes invalidated were because they arrived too late to qualify for the election. Nearly 11 percent more had problems with the voter's signature.

And while 34 states boasted acceptance rates of over 90 percent (seven states did not provide data for the report) several still lagged behind in successfully processing overseas ballots. Texas rejected nearly one in five of the ballots; Indiana, West Virginia and New Jersey dumped more than a third of their overseas votes.

More than 190 million Americans were registered to vote for the 2008 election, an increase of more than 14 million from 2004.