Of course, federal law today still requires all states to offer mail-in voting to military and overseas voters for candidates for federal office in U.S. primary and general elections. Some states allow foreign citizens to vote for candidates for state and local office, as well as in state and local referendums.
Postal voting (absentee voting, mail-in ballots or vote-by-mail) was introduced during the Civil War to allow soldiers away from their homes to exercise their right to vote.
About 2.9 million American voters live abroad. However, they vote little: their participation rate was 7.8% in 2020, according to the Federal Voting Assistance Program.
Voters vote in their home state. And this year, the vote of expatriate Americans could prove crucial in the next seven yearswing states. According to estimates from the Democratic National Committee (DNC), some 1.6 million expatriates can vote in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin.
These Americans abroad would rather be favorable to the Democratic camp. Among those who used the platform during the 2020 presidential election « Vote from Abroad » (vote from abroad), a nonpartisan tool linked to the DNC, three-quarters said they were Democrats.
For the first time for a presidential election, the DNC granted funding – around $300,000 – to Democrats abroad in order to help with the registration process for expatriates on the electoral lists and to encourage the sending of ballots. voting. Advertisements were also made on social media to encourage Americans abroad to vote.
Donald Trump also wants to convince expatriates. He promised to end the double taxation of Americans abroad, who are forced to fill out an income tax form regardless of where they reside. No details were given by his campaign team on the implementation of such a measure. If American nationals living abroad do not have to pay income tax when they earn less than $126,500, and if they can benefit from certain specific tax credits, this is often a bureaucratic headache almost without equivalent for expatriates.
Ahead of the election, the Republican National Committee (RNC), closely linked to the Trump campaign, has already initiated legal proceedings targeting voters abroad, including those from Pennsylvania. If they were to succeed, the number of expatriate Americans authorized to vote could be reduced. This move by the Republicans prompted six elected Democrats in the US House of Representatives to send a letter to the Secretary of Defense to verify whether the legal procedure would have consequences on the constitutional rights of military personnel. They accused the Republicans of wanting “sowing discord and disinformation”. Two complaints filed in Michigan and North Carolina by Republican representatives with the aim of preventing certain expatriates from voting in these states were rejected by judges on Monday.
