INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana soldiers, Marines and others serving half a world away in Iraq and Afghanistan will be able to vote in November for the first time by e-mail, an option intended to fight delays that invalidated thousands of military votes in the 2006 election.

Troops have long been able to request absentee ballots by mail, but the time it can take for ballots to reach them and then return stateside can mean they arrive after an election is over.

According to the Pew Center for the States, more than two-thirds of the 1 million absentee ballots sent in by military and civilian overseas voters in 2006 arrived too late to be counted.

That problem spurred Indiana in 2007 to approve offering e-mail as a far speedier and more predictable alternative. Ten other states also offer the e-mail option.

In November, troops from Indiana and those other states will be able to request ballots through e-mail, print them out, mark their choices, scan them and send them back home — all through a Department of Defense e-mail pipeline designed to prevent outside tampering.

Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita, an early supporter of the technology, said some aspects of the system are closely guarded by the Defense Department. But he is convinced that it is as safe as regular absentee voting.

"If they are able to keep a military secret then they probably can keep these e-mails in a secure fashion," Rokita said,

In Iraq, where more than 3,000 Indiana National Guard troops are stationed, nearly all the troops have access to e-mail. Many packed a laptop with their personal gear for the trip and others can use Internet-wired computers in common areas such as recreation halls.

To make sure Hoosier troops understood their options, Rokita's office sent out e-mails with voting information to about 3,100 soldiers stationed overseas.

It's unclear how many of the troops will vote by e-mail or another option unveiled in 2004, voting by fax. Both of those voting methods come with the drawback of eliminating ballot secrecy, which is lost when the e-mail or fax arrives in the office of county clerks. Staff at those offices must read the messages and transfer the votes onto a paper ballot for counting.

1st Lt. Eugene Maharry, an Indiana National Guardsman and a voter assistance officer, said in an e-mail from Iraq that the paper absentee ballot are still "the most preferred method."

Maharry said that despite their duties and constant threats of danger, many troops closely follow the presidential race through Web sites, television broadcasts and reading newspapers. He said soldiers are keenly interested in the election's outcome.

"This is an election of historical proportions, and if you can't get excited about making history, then what can you get excited for?" he said.

Many Indiana counties are still finalizing their ballots and expect to have them finished and sent out by the end of September. The process extended a little later this year because the presidential conventions were staged later.

Michael Caudell-Feagan, director of the Pew Center's "Make Voting Work" program, said he's concerned that there won't be enough turnaround time for paper ballots to be sent from the states and then returned again in time for counting.

Indiana allows ballots cast by military personnel to be counted even if they arrive as late as Nov. 14, so long as they were postmarked by Election Day. Civilian absentee voters have to get their absentee ballots in by Election Day.

Election ballots are given the highest priority when it comes to military postal system sorting, said Shari Lawrence, a spokeswoman for the Army Human Resources Command in Virginia.

But she said the average transit time between the United States and the theaters in Iraq and Afghanistan is seven to eight days.

"We are encouraging them to get them early, and get them out and get them back here," Lawrence said.