Salon: Suppressing the Overseas Vote

Salon.com has a fairly alarming article about potentially large numbers of us expats who could either not get their votes in in time, or else find that their ballots (official or write-in) might simply not be counted by the election boards. Like many of you, my Absentee Ballot never arrived so I had to request a Federal Write In Ballot from Democrats Abroad. Salon writes about that scenario, and it ain't pretty:

But the program's record does not inspire much confidence. Indeed, voters contacting officials to ask about the ballot have been shocked at the ignorance they've encountered. In Nepal, one embassy worker said the ballot could be mailed from the United States, which it cannot; in Chester County, Pa., an election supervisor had no idea what it was. Says Wright of the Military Voting Rights Project: "Nobody has ever heard of it. The FVAP does show up at meetings and presentations, but I bet a lot of the 5,000 election officials don't go to those meetings, judging from the very basic questions we get back."

While waiting for the FVAP to act, both parties gyrated over the Internet. AOK put up its own version online with the disclaimer that no one knew if such ballots would be accepted; Democrats Abroad and the two main registration Web sites did not. Republicans Abroad then snitched the AOK form, without the disclaimer, and put it on its site, only to shamefacedly pull it off when told that, until the FVAP formally approved it, nobody could use the darn thing. AOK finally sent out 25,000 hard copies at its own expense to voters from swing states who'd signed up on the Overseas Vote 2004 Web site.

It then tackles the ever-prickly question of which way the expat vote chips will fall:

Which way these hordes of new voters go is, in fact, the big overseas question -- assuming they get to vote. Democrats and Republicans alike see gold in both the civilian and military camps. What's undisputed is that the Bush administration has galvanized overseas voters as never before. "The entire world is against Bush, and we reflect that view that America has lost all its credibility abroad," says McQueen of Democrats Abroad. "I was tired of cringing in the supermarket whenever I spoke English to my kids, knowing how much we as Americans were hated," says Dzieduszycka-Suinat. Hills, for her part, reports that many Republicans, angered at what they see as unjust attacks, are coming out in equal droves to support the president. On both sides, stories abound of older Americans, and dual citizens who've kept their American passports, emerging like Rip Van Winkle to vote for the first time in 30 or 40 years.

In reality, the political affiliation of these voters is unknown. Both sides claim a 60 percent edge: Democrats, based on a Zogby study, say that Americans with passports tend to vote liberal. Republicans, meanwhile, cite international business and the conservatism of Pentagon civilian employees and soldiers. Yet both estimates are what military people call SWAG -- scientific wild-ass guesses -- about a woolly and ever-growing overseas population of civil servants, diplomats, employees of global businesses, students, journalists, artists, academics and, yes, soldiers on the battlefield.

Comments

[Chrish]

Hard to believe that after all of these years
with US citizens, etc. living overseas and voting
from overseas there would still be problems and
general F.U's.

I do hope this isn't another blame it on Bush trip.

[Luke]

No for once, I'm not blaming this on Bush - I think this is a general bureaucratic mess that he inherited. It's just that it's come into the limelight now that so many more people want to vote from abroad this year.

[Maryann]

News flash: The government doesn't really want you actively involved in voting. They make it difficult and byzantine on purpose. You should remain focused on producing and consuming goods and services. Once you start feeling you've got real sway in Washington you're likely to get all uppity. So neither party is going to really rehaul the system any time soon.

[Jim]

Does John Kerry stand for anything other than not being George Bush?
Can he go to more churches and kill more geese to pander for votes? He's the everyman.

By the way, it's well known that tens of thousands of Dems are registered in multiple states. Go for it. We're watching you.

[Chrish]

You're right Luke, leave it to the bureaucrat's
to muck things up.

Wouldn't it be easier if they used the Embassy's
in all of the various countries to serve both
registration and voting? They receive all of the
registrations cards and verify them. Come voting
time they acts as polling booths, when voting is
done they take all of the ballots and either fax
them to a central place here in the US and then
pass them onto the various states, or fax them
to the various states, or scan the ballots in and
send them out over a secure connection?

Seems to me these embassy's and their staff could
do more than just attend high functions.