On Voting from Abroad

Ballots from Americans overseas can be decisive in Presidential elections. So why isn’t it easier to vote?

Keeping this piece public and free for all since we need as many people as possible to understand the rules and stakes of voting from overseas! I promise, regular Paris programming returns after this with a new series launching in November. Stay tuned.

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Like many of my fellow Americans living overseas, I’ve seen a lot of Julia Louis Dreyfus in the last two months. Not up close (though I’d like to) but in my Instagram feed, where the star’s spirited video encouraging me to request my ballot for the upcoming election has been shown to me hundreds of times. For the nearly 3 million eligible American voters living overseas—the bulk of whom live in Canada, the U.K., Mexico, and France—we can swing the outcome of the election, she insists. 

The video¹ was filmed on behalf of the Center for U.S. Voters Abroad— a glitchy system that volunteers tell me no one knows anything about— and part of other get-out-the-vote online campaigns featuring lo-fi messages from famous figures. Samuel L. Jackson’s clip for Votefromabroad.org, a non-partisan has run across social media and even found its way onto podcasts streamed from outside of the United States.

It’s all in an effort to remind U.S. citizens that they have the legal right to vote absentee in federal elections, as promised by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) of 1986—even if they have never lived in the United States and despite former President Donald Trump’s misleading claims that Democrats send ballots overseas “without any citizenship check or verification of identity”. 

If the Democratic National Committee and private donors have committed a reported $450,000 toward reaching and assisting Americans abroad through traditional and social media advertising, in-person events, Zoom gatherings, and snail mail, and the Republican National Committee launched the Republicans Overseas website, it’s because these voters represent an important voting bloc that can swing key states in narrow-margin elections —as it did in the 2020 Presidential Election. A total of 19,500 ballots reached Georgia from overseas and President Biden won the state by 11,779 votes. Arizona counted 18,435 abroad ballots in 2020 and President Biden won the state by 10,457 votes. And back in 2000, overseas Republican votes were instrumental in delivering Florida to George W. Bush and, by extension, the White House. 

And you know overseas voters are considered more and more important when the GOP files lawsuits (as they did this week) to challenge our ballots.

Source: The Federal Voting Assistance Program (non-partisan)

And yet, as impressive as that sounds, less than 10% of Americans living, studying, or serving overseas voted in 2020. And for the 2022 mid-term elections, only 3.4% of eligible overseas voters cast a ballot.

One reason? It’s complicated.

As the Federal Voting Assistance Program puts it, some overseas citizens may not be interested in voting but others don’t go through the steps due to “real or perceived obstacles overseas citizens encountered that domestic voters do not face.” That starts with understanding, first and foremost, that we have the right to vote and then knowing how to go about doing so. 

And for the many critics who think Americans overseas shouldn’t have the right to vote (this comes up A LOT), it’s worth remembering there are countless reasons a citizen may be living abroad—temporarily or permanently—and we are still held to tax obligations. We also benefit from consular support which is only one of many reasons for us to remain active and committed to voting—an even bigger one is the extent to which U.S. policies and geopolitical decisions have a global impact.

So, what are some of the challenges?

• Each state has different dates for registration and rules for sending in ballots. (Unlike in French elections, U.S. embassies do not serve as polling stations for voters.)

  “The biggest issue is that there is no minimum federal standard for how voting should work, whether overseas or stateside. With 50 different systems, and changes being made all the time, voters must scrupulously follow the rules for their state or risk their ballots being invalidated.” — Communications officer & spokeswoman for Democrats Abroad (source: email exchange)

• In some states, overseas voters are automatically registered if they voted in the last Presidential election. But in my case, as a PA voter, I have to re-register every single time.

• After registering, we request the ballot (called the Federal Post Card Application). By when? Ideally, months and months in advance so that you receive the ballot 45 days before the election. But unless you’re familiar with the process, most wait until they start seeing pushes from volunteers and fellow Americans overseas. CBS reported that “it is a good idea for Americans abroad to send in a new FCPA every January or if they have a change of address” to which I say, how is one supposed to know this? I’ve been voting overseas since 2008 and I’ve never sent in a new one in January, ever.

• Some states require a printed ballot that must be filled out and returned in a very specific manner, like via FAX (😭), while others allow for electronic delivery which simplifies the process. And naturally, the postmark date also varies. In Georgia, an updated bill made the window for requesting and returning an absentee ballot extremely small: it must be requested no sooner than 78 days before the election and must be returned 11 days before the election to be counted. Good luck with ensuring that happens with the USPS!

• Many states require the use of an inner “secrecy envelope”. This isn’t challenging but if you forget the step, your vote won’t be counted. Similarly, if you scribble elsewhere on the ballot or don’t fill in the circle for your chosen candidate properly, it won’t count.

• What about knowing if your ballot actually arrives? I’m fortunate to vote in a small county in the Philadelphia suburbs where someone actually replies to my emails fairly promptly so I check in with them directly. That isn’t possible for every American voter. And the reality is, mailing anything from abroad (even when sent registered or certified) is a bit of a guessing game. Some states use apps like BallotTrax² that allow voters to track the safe arrival of their ballot but far from enough of them do. And opting for signature confirmation from local election officials may only delay processing further.
  

• Didn’t get registered or receive your ballot by your state’s deadlines? There’s also a backup option, the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot. But most voters don’t even realize this exists and simply give up if they miss all the other deadlines.

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WHAT NEXT?

While I do believe that the decentralization of voting is one way to safeguard the democratic process, hurdles remain. These challenges are different from serious barriers in the U.S., like voter suppression, polling location closures, reduced voting hours, voter ID requirements, and more that attempt to disenfranchise specific groups of voters, but they exist all the same.

Voting in-person at a U.S. embassy is never going to be an option but the key next step is to make this awareness-building campaign ongoing. It’s wonderful that money is being invested in getting out the vote this year but the push needs to be sustained—people forget how the process works, even by the time the midterms come around. New overseas residents who may be embarking on it for the first time and don’t know where to begin. And as we know, the rules are ever-changing. If we’re meant to support the democratic election process, we need to be given the chance and empowered to do so.

1. Sharing the one on Facebook which is on the Center for U.S. Voters Abroad page vs the Instagram video which wasn’t published on Julia’s feed but rather sponsored and targeted to accounts overseas.

2. More on how this works, here.