Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has directed military officials to provide him a report by Oct. 19 verifying that each of the 221 installation voting assistance offices is appropriately staffed to meet the needs of troops.

He gave officials three days to get it done; the memo was issued Oct. 16 to the service secretaries, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, and chiefs of the combatant commands.

“We must do all we can to ensure that service members know the steps necessary to vote, particularly those service members deployed or based away from home. This issue must be addressed immediately,” he wrote.

Panetta responded to a report issued by the Defense Department Inspector General on Aug. 31 that stated that auditors could not reach about half of the installation voting assistance offices by phone after repeated attempts. He noted that DoD recently has received similar reports from congressional sources.

Panetta noted that DoD’s internal research “indicates that we were able to reach the overwhelming majority of voter assistance offices by phone.”

He said DoD is also encouraging troops to vote through emails and with worldwide messages from Panetta, Joint Chiefs Chairman Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, and Dempsey’s senior enlisted adviser, Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. Bryan Battaglia.