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Anxious Americans Overseas Wait for Absentee Ballots As Election Interest Soars
From liberal-minded expatriates in this laidback artists' colony to Orthodox Jews pouring over Biblical commentaries in Israel, Americans abroad are lining up to vote in large numbers, believing their ballots could provide the margin of victory in this year's presidential race. Around the world, the Nov. 2 U.S. election has stirred deep passions among the four million to six million Americans estimated to live overseas. Most remember well the results of the 2000 election -- when Al Gore won the popular vote but George W. Bush won the presidency after Florida shifted the electoral vote in his favor. It was Florida's absentee ballots that gave President Bush his 537-vote victory.
The result: Democrats and Republicans are working hard to capture votes abroad while expatriates are flooding their former home states with absentee ballots. As of September, the Pentagon -- in charge of supplying voter-registration applications -- had distributed over 5.3 million applications for absentee ballots, up from the roughly three million in 2000. In China, Democratic clubs have sprung up in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. In Europe, Republicans Abroad has hosted cocktail parties in capital cities in hopes of bringing out the expat vote for Mr. Bush. In Hong Kong, Brett Rierson, a 38-year-old former technology venture capitalist, quit his job to spend the past year setting up a Web site, www.overseasvote.com1, which has registered 66,000 voters, 40% of whom may vote in battleground states.
But with the election just days away, many expatriates are still waiting anxiously for their absentee ballots to arrive. In S'o Paulo, Felicia Smith, head of the Brazilian chapter of Republicans Abroad, says about half the people she registered have yet to receive ballots. A few feel so strongly that they plan to fly home next week to cast ballots in their former hometowns. "My absentee ballot hasn't come in and I'm getting nervous," says Jill Genser, an Arizona photographer who recently moved to San Miguel.
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Expats face a confusing array of requirements when applying for absentee ballots, which means frustrating delays in receiving the actual ballot. The situation this year is worse due to the surge in absentee voters. "This election is one of greater passion and interest than the one in 2000, and statistically, the more people you register, the more problems you find," says Sharon Minetta, international press secretary for Democrats Abroad in London.
Swing state New Mexico, for instance, is expecting at least 160,000 absentee ballots, twice the number of cast in 2000 when the state went to Mr. Gore by only 366 votes.
Registered voters abroad who havenât received an absentee ballot can use federal write-in absentee ballots. The Pentagon has distributed 1.8 million of them and last week made the ballot form available on the Federal Voting Assistance Programâs Web site, www.fvap.gov2. The completed ballots are mailed to the voterâs local election board in the U.S. and counted. But if an expat later receives the state absentee ballot, it has to be sent to the voterâs electoral board, which eliminates the federal ballot and counts the state ballot instead.
Americans abroad have had the right to vote in federal elections since 1975. Generally, expats apply for a ballot from the voting district in the state where they last cast a ballot -- no matter how long ago they lived there. Request forms can be picked up at embassies and consulates abroad, or downloaded from the FVAP and other Web sites.
Each state has different rules for applying for absentee ballots. Ohio wants to know how long an expat from Ohio had lived in the state. Virginia demands the name and address of the voterâs employer. A few states, like Michigan, require a notarized voting form, which most likely means a trip to the embassy or a consulate.
Would-be voters have had to deal with controversial restrictions imposed by the Pentagon on access to the FVAP Web site. Saying it was trying to stop hackers, the Pentagon cut off several Internet service providers for months, preventing potential voters in at least 25 countries from accessing the entire site. The block was lifted in late September after legislators from both parties and voters complained.
Traditionally, relatively few Americans living abroad have voted in elections. Republicans have enjoyed a big advantage over Democrats with 500,000 military personnel stationed abroad, 69% of whom voted in the 2000 election. Only 37% of American civilians living abroad voted in the 2000 election, according to a Pentagon study.
But that laissez-faire attitude appears to be changing. In many cities, opposition to Mr. Bushâs Iraq policy is driving many expatriates to vote. "This is the first time in my life that Iâm deeply ashamed of being an American citizen," says Luisa Velte, an 83-year-old retired high-school teacher living in San Miguel along with 4,000 other expats. "When Mexicans ask me where Iâm from, Iâm tempted to say Iâm Canadian."
In Europe, harsh criticism of Mr. Bushâs policies has led some Republicans to defect to the Democrats. French-American Christian D. de Fouloy left his post as head of Republicans Abroad Belgium to start Republicans for Kerry Europe, which he says has about 100 active members.
Robert Pingeon, the European chairman of Republicans Abroad, says his group has encountered strong anti-Bush sentiment in France, Belgium and Germany. "We tend to be discreet. We donât marshal in the streets. We donât put Bush bumper stickers on our automobiles," he says.
Similarly, in San Miguel, when President Bushâs nephew, George P. Bush, came to town, it was an invitation-only affair attended by a few dozen people. Local Republicans "came out of the closet" to greet Mr. Bush, was how Atención, the weekly English-language newspaper, reported the event.
In Tel Aviv, on the other side of the world, Republicans feel they have the edge. Although the Jewish vote is strongly Democratic in the U.S., it often sides with Republicans in Israel, where as many as 100,000 Americans live. Mark Zell, an Israeli-American lawyer and key member of Republicans Abroad organization there, says heâs convinced U.S. expats in Israel provided the razor-thin victory margin for Mr. Bush in 2000 and could do the same again.
Pollster John Zogby agrees. "Expats could very well tip the balance," he says, particularly if the election is close. In that case, he predicts, results of the overseas voting could be subjected to a variety of court challenges, delaying the final outcome for weeks. 
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