Courting the expatriate vote

 

Connecting state and local government leaders

Level of expatriate voting expected to be high for the presidential election, according to Overseas Vote Foundation.

The Overseas Vote Foundation is seeing high levels of activity
on its Web site, as well as 16 other OVF hosted sites
offering registration and voting assistance to the estimated 6
million military personnel and civilians living overseas.


With a tight presidential race expected, the U.S. expatriate
vote is a constituency that cannot be ignored; both the Obama and McCain campaigns are incorporating OVF sites in
their efforts to get the vote out, said OVF President Susan
Dzieduszycka-Suinat. The foundation has registered nearly 90,000
voters for this year's election.


In addition to its own Web site and those used by the campaigns,
both political parties and a number of states also are using OVF
online services to provide information and forms for voter
registration, downloadable federal absentee ballots and discount
rates on express mailing of completed ballots to home precincts.
The sites have received more than 2 million visits this year, and
during September they were averaged 25,000 visitors a day.


Voting already has begun using the Vote-Print-Mail Ballot system
that generates voter-specific absentee ballots customized according
to the voter's home ZIP code. An Express Your Vote program
gives discounted FedEx rates for shipping these forms to stateside
election officials.


'It's taking off,' said Dzieduszycka-Suinat.
'It's really picked up in the last three days,'
especially from some Asian countries, where shipping is free.


The applications hosted by OVF were created with help from a
grant from the Pew Charitable Trust's Make Voting Work
initiative and the JEHT Foundation to encourage participation in
elections by service members living abroad or away from home in
this country or Americans living overseas. Casting votes
traditionally has been difficult for them, primarily because of
delays in getting ballots delivered from local election officials
and returning them in time to be counted.


The Election Assistance Commission reported in 2007 that only
about 992,000 absentee ballots were requested by this group in
2006, and only slightly more than 330,000 of these were cast or
counted. The most common reason for requested ballots not being
cast, 70 percent, was that mailed ballots were returned as
undeliverable.


So OVF is using online technology to address the problems. Of
the nearly 90,000 voters it has helped to register, 26 percent are
first-time voters and for 70 percent this is the first time they
will vote from overseas. More than one-third are younger than 30.
The voting experience of these new and young voters is significant
because it could affect their inclination to vote again in the
future, Dzieduszycka-Suinat said.


'It's hard to get new people to vote,' she
said. 'That's where we've been particularly
strong this year.'


Despite the successes, Dzieduszycka-Suinat is a little
disappointed with the numbers. 'I had hoped to get
500,000,' she said. 'Maybe I was shooting too
high.'


This is the first election cycle the OVF has had its
applications up and running. It offered a limited number of
services for the 2006 elections, but because of a loss of funding
its sites went offline in September of that year, and were not
relaunched until October 2007.


She also was hoping to get more of the military involved.
Although military personnel make up a large part of the overseas
constituent, only about 7,500 of them have registered through OVF,
less than 10 percent of the total. But the military has its own
program to assist registration. 'It's a fragmented
effort,' she said.


Most of the military registrations have come from Germany,
followed by Iraq, Afghanistan and South Korea.


The Express Your Vote program began Sept. 15 before most people
had their ballots, so it only recently began taking off. To date,
700 waybills have been created. In the last three days the number
has begun growing at a faster rate as voter's ballots begin
to arrive. So far, ballots have been expressed home from 55 of the
89 countries in which discounted rates are available. The bulk of
the shipments are expected to be processed in the second half of
October.



X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.