The Expat Factor-Everything you need to know about this year's Global Primary

The Expat Factor by Adriane Quinlan
Everything you need to know about this year's Global Primary.
Post Date Tuesday, February 12, 2008


On Super Tuesday, the first votes to be registered in the presidential primaries were not in Georgia, West Virginia, or New Jersey, but in Jakarta, Indonesia--where Barack Obama spent four years of his childhood, and where early polls showed him trouncing Hillary Clinton.

Right now, thousands of Democrats living abroad are voting online, using a secure website with a personalized 10-digit individual ballot number to log their choices for this year's presidential candidate. Organized by Democrats Abroad, the official overseas arm of the party, this first-ever online "Global Primary" will elect 22 delegates, just one less than North Dakota.

The vote began on February 5 and will continue until today, February 12, at 10 a.m. GMT--adding international excitement to today's "Potomac Primary." The delegates will be chosen by the same method states use, but with three regions of the world (the Americas; Asia-Pacific; and Europe-Middle East-Africa) functioning like congressional districts. Each of the three districts will elect three delegates each, based proportionally on how their districts voted, with a candidate needing over two-thirds of the vote to win all three delegates in a district. In addition, there will be eight unpledged superdelegates from the membership ranks of Democrats Abroad, and a final five delegates--three pledged to echo the vote totals and two additional superdelegates--elected by the first 17.

In a race where every delegate matters, Clinton and Obama are actively courting the Democratic diaspora. Both Michelle Obama and Bill Clinton have made fund-raising trips to England, and Obama himself held three teleconference events with voters in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Beijing. Based on early projections, expatriates are voting in record number this year--and giving money at record levels as well.

In 1976, the Overseas Voting Rights Act made it mandatory for every state to provide a way for its former residents to vote in primary and general elections. Any U.S. citizen abroad could vote in his or her state of last residence if that state had a primary (rather than a caucus) system. The Democratic National Committee went further than just enabling international absentee balloting: It gave expats 22 convention delegates to represent their interests as a bloc--a number that has remained constant over the past three decades despite the significant increase in the number of Americans living overseas. (Republicans Abroad is an unofficial arm of the Republican Party, and has no comparable role in the GOP's nominating contest.)

Democrats Abroad's new online voting system is just the latest tactic in the group's efforts to boost participation. From 1976 to 1988, Democrats overseas voted by mail for their delegates, drawing scant numbers. In 1992, Democrats Abroad unsuccessfully tried to bolster numbers by using a caucus system in major international cities. But the majority of Democrats could not attend a caucus in an international hub and remained disenfranchised. The only other option--to vote absentee in their home states--was (and remains) difficult. Laws about overseas voting are variable by state, sometimes arcane, and often wildly inconvenient. Most require foreigners to provide a self-addressed, stamped envelope. "Where do you buy U.S. stamps in Phnom Penh?" asked Democrats Abroad's Cambodia Chair, Wayne Weightman, who in 2006 paid a friend traveling to the U.S. $50 to pick some up so that his vote would count. He was one of a slim percentage of expats willing to go through the hassle: In 2006, only 992,034 of the four to seven million Americans estimated to be abroad requested ballots--and only about 330,000 were actually cast. Of the remaining uncast votes, a government study found that 70 percent had been returned as "undeliverable" to elections officials.

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http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=9578d579-4df4-4cf9-bc2b-55f531e73cb1

First of all, welcome back!:hug:
Secondly, don't you find it sad that most expat votes will end up not counting--yet such a big deal was made about the Iraqi's here in the states voting--and truth be known--their votes probably counted more than the folks who were actually there.:(
What a sad sad sad state of affairs.

vote wouldn't count, and it just might. There's hope... I'd like to see some solid evidence the troops' votes actually count. They're not expats, but they're not here either.

I don't think he will win Mexico, because of the demographics, but I did my part :)

be interested. :thumbsup: