As many as 10 million ballots could be cast from abroad
NEW YORK, Aug. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- With polls showing the race for
president a dead heat, both camps know every vote counts in November. An
exhaustive search of LexisNexis(R), a leading provider of legal, news, and
business information services, indicates one resource that might be a factor
in determining the next president is the expatriate vote -- Americans who cast
a ballot from abroad.
The search provided interesting perspective regarding the number of voters
overseas, the movement to protect voters' rights and many other facts that
will help in story development leading up to the 2004 presidential election.
- With the passage of the 1975 Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Rights
Act, all American citizens living outside the U.S. were given the right
to vote in federal elections.
- Under legislation passed in 1986, the Pentagon's Federal Voting
Assistance Program is responsible for helping about 6 million military
and civilians overseas cast ballots.
- Ten years ago, a bill was introduced in Congress to create a delegate
to represent Americans living abroad and to give that delegate the same
rights as other non-state delegates elected to the U.S. House of
Representatives by residents of the District of Columbia, the Virgin
Islands, American Samoa and Guam. However, the legislation never came
to the floor for a vote.
- A group of organizations representing U.S. citizens overseas is now
urging Congress to revive the issue, prompted in large part by
continued congressional interest in eliminating the tax breaks that
expatriates receive on part of their salaries earned outside the
country.
- Expatriate Americans are currently exempt from paying U.S. income tax
on wages up to $80,000 annually.
- As of July 9, 2004, 340,000 Federal Post Card Applications for absentee
ballots were sent in response to requests from voters abroad. That's
90,000 more than the number of requests for the entire 2000
presidential election.
- Absentee-ballot procedures for U.S. citizens living abroad are:
- Request a Federal Post Card Application for an absentee ballot from
the Federal Voting Assistance Program ( http://www.fvap.gov ).
- Mail the application to the election official where you last lived or
registered to vote.
- Most states and territories will send absentee ballots to citizens 30
to 45 days before an election.
- Cut-off dates for the receipt of completed absentee ballots vary by
state. For dates, check with the local election official or visit the
FVAP Web site.
- Some states require the return envelope for absentee ballots to be
notarized or witnessed. Absentee ballots can be notarized or
witnessed at U.S. embassies or consulates.
- The Pentagon dropped a $22 million pilot plan to test Internet voting
for 100,000 American military personnel and civilians living overseas
after lingering security concerns. A group of security consultants
hired by the government to poke holes in its Secure Electronic
Registration and Voting Experiment (SERVE) did just that. Their
scathing report concluded that the Net is so fundamentally insecure
that using it for voting in the foreseeable future threatens the
integrity of the electoral process.
Americans Abroad
- There are no firm statistics on the number of U.S. citizens who live
abroad, with estimates from various government and private groups
ranging from 3 million to 10 million.
- Sources vary when it comes to quantifying the number of eligible
American voters abroad. The non-partisan Center for Voting and
Democracy says 2 million to 3 million expatriates are eligible voters.
Federal officials say roughly 6 million Americans overseas are eligible
to vote: 3.2 million private expatriates; 1.4 million members of the
armed forces and 1.3 million of their relatives; and about 200,000
State Department workers and other government employees.
- It is estimated that about 30 percent of U.S. citizens overseas vote.
Overall turnout in the 2000 presidential election was more than 50
percent. According to estimates provided by the Foreign Voter
Assistance Program, run by the Department of Defense to facilitate
overseas voting, turnout among non-government American civilians abroad
in the past four presidential elections has fluctuated between 31
percent and 38 percent of eligible voters
- About 70 percent of military personnel vote, and are traditionally
Republicans. About 69 percent of uniformed service members voted in
2000, up 5 percent from 1996. But military turnout has ranged from 64
percent to 69 percent; and turnout among government-employed civilians
has ranged from 64 percent to 79 percent.
- In the 2000 presidential election, about 15 percent of the votes cast
were absentee ballots - about double the figure in the presidential
race of 1992.
- The U.S. Census Bureau is considering counting Americans abroad in the
next census. Mexico, followed by Canada, is widely believed to be first
on the list with the largest population of expatriate Americans - the
U.S. embassy in Mexico City estimates the number at 350,000, but others
say it could be a million or more. Britain is believed to host about
250,000 Americans. Israel, with 158,000 Americans, had 40,000 ballots
cast by Americans in the 1996 presidential election. About 67,000
Americans live in Italy.
Democrats Abroad
- Democrats Abroad, which is active in more than 37 countries, is an
official branch of the Democratic Party. Democrats Abroad was set up in
1964 by party supporters living in the UK and France.
- At the Democratic National Convention 2004 in Boston, Democrats Abroad
had a delegation of 32 people from 12 countries that included nine
delegate votes among the 4,300-plus delegates who nominated John Kerry
as the party's candidate.
- Membership in Democrats Abroad has doubled since the beginning of 2004
from 8,000 to 16,000. In Britain, the organization has registered 4,000
voters, compared with a few hundred at this time in 2000, according to
officials with Democrats Abroad.
Republicans Abroad
- Republicans Abroad, formally set up in 1978, says it has branches in
about 50 countries. This group is not sending delegates to vote in the
Republican National Convention 2004 in August in New York.
International Election Legislation
Countries worldwide have varying election laws that pertain to their
expatriates. Often, immigrants to the United States wield great influence on
the outcome of presidential elections in their homelands. Here is a
compilation of some of the more interesting cases culled from the LexisNexis
database:
Colombia
- Four years ago, Colombian immigrants to the United States successfully
lobbied for a Colombian constitutional amendment allowing them to
retain the privileges of Colombian nationality. Colombian nationals can
vote - either in Colombia or at a Colombian consulate abroad - and run
for office in their homeland, even after they become United States
citizens.
- In the 1994 fiscal year, according to the United States Immigration and
Naturalization Service, 12,067 Colombians became American citizens,
more than double their numbers in 1991.
Dominican Republic
- The Dominican government estimates more than 1 million Dominicans live
in mainland United States, mostly New York and Miami, with 100,000 more
in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.
- The number of overseas voters registered is small: 52,440 of the
national total of 5 million. A law passed in 1997 extended
presidential voting to citizens abroad and gave them dual
citizenship, but the Electoral Commission couldn't organize the
polling in time for the 2000 elections.
- The Dominican government says those living abroad send back an
estimated $2 billion a year in family remittances, constituting one
of the country's main income sources.
Ecuador
- Ecuador approved dual nationality last year, though it does not permit
voting in its overseas consulates.
El Salvador
- According to the 2000 Census, Salvadorans number 765,000 nationwide.
Even if the residents abroad do not vote, foreign politicians gave good
reason to heed their views: El Salvador receives an estimated $2
billion from expatriates every year - the country's largest source of
foreign currency, surpassing all exports and foreign investment.
France
- The French, with nearly 2 million citizens settled abroad, have moved
ahead to increase the number of people representing expatriate
interests in their Senate from four to 12.
- France led Europe in creating parliamentary seats specifically for
overseas residents. These overseas residents have been represented in
the Senate since 1946. In 1948, the High Council of French Citizens
Resident Abroad was created to represent expatriate interests to
official bodies, including the country's National Assembly.
- The French government decided last year to test Internet voting for
citizens living abroad. More than 60 percent of the voters in the
U.S. used the Internet system rather than mailing ballots or going to
an embassy or consulate.
Great Britain
- British expatriates had no right to vote until the mid-1980s. They can
now vote by proxy in general elections if they have been on a British
electoral register at some point in the past 15 years.
- Although there has been talk of creating a parliamentary constituency
for expatriates, it has foundered because there is no accurate tally
of the number and location of British expatriates to use as a
starting point to lobby for a seat.
Ireland
- Ireland has a constitutional amendment pending that would provide for
three members of its Senate to be elected by Irish emigrants.
Italy
- Italy revised its election laws in 1993 to allow its expatriates to
vote in national elections and to permit as many as eight Italians
living abroad to become members of its national Parliament.
Mexico
- Mexico accounts for more than a quarter of the foreign-born population
in the United States with 7.8 million people. In 1996, Mexico granted
its citizens who live in the United States the right to cast absentee
ballots, instantly creating a bloc of nearly 11 million potential
voters. In 1998, Mexico changed its laws to allow dual citizenship.
- To date, a balloting mechanism has not been created in the U.S. The
government wants the absentee-voting system created by July 5, 2005,
so Mexicans living in the United States can vote in their 2006
national elections - a decade after the right was extended to them.
- In 2003, Mexicans in the United States sent $12 billion to their
families back home - more foreign income than from tourism, foreign
investment or exported oil - and, as voters, they would represent 15
percent of the Mexican electorate.
Philippines
- For the first time, Filipino citizens living in the U.S. cast ballots
in the May 2004 presidential election, thanks to the Overseas Absentee
Voting Act, enacted in 2003, which granted voting rights and dual
citizenship to Filipinos living overseas.
Portugal
- Portugal allows four parliamentarians, two representing Portuguese
citizens living in Europe and two for those living in the rest of the
world.
South Korea
- Although the 1.5 million Koreans in the United States can't vote in
South Korea's elections, they shape opinion in South Korea.
Switzerland
- Switzerland gave expatriates the right to vote in 1992 and allowed them
to stand for Parliament in one of the country's 26 cantons. No
candidate has won a seat, although one came close in 1999, because of
difficulties in gathering support long distance.
- To interest their 600,000 citizens overseas in taking part in the
country's political life, the Swiss are considering the idea of a
27th canton, which would create two parliamentary representatives for
expat interests.
Taiwan
- Although Taiwanese officials could not say how many of the roughly 2.4
million people of Chinese descent in the U.S. - 69,000 in the
Washington region - vote in homeland elections or donate to campaigns,
they said the number is likely small.
Trinidad & Tobago
- In Trinidad and Tobago, which has allowed the practice since 1988, dual
nationals can vote only if they have lived there for a year prior to
elections.
Venezuela
- In Venezuela's case, immigration into the United States has been more
of an elite relocation than a broad-based migration. In 1996, the last
year for which data have been published, the United States admitted
just 3,468 Venezuelan immigrants, compared with 163,572 Mexicans,
39,604 Dominicans, 26,466 Cubans, and 18,836 Haitians. That same year,
Guyana, with a fraction of Venezuela's population, had 2-1/2 times as
many immigrants admitted into the United States.
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