A US citizen abroad voter shows a sticker that reads ‘I voted today’ at a stand set up outside a cafe by Democrats Abroad volunteers to help Americans living in Paris to navigate the bureaucracies of state and local election laws, in Paris, France, on Monday. REUTERS
While Americans abroad do not have to pay US tax on their first $126,500 in earned income and are eligible for some foreign tax credit, it can be a bureaucratic headache expatriates from many other countries don’t face.
“For many Americans abroad, including myself, the only consistent interaction we have with the US government is through the IRS every April when we have to file and pay our taxes,” said Zennon Kapron, a Singapore-based fintech consultant registered to vote in New York, when asked if Trump’s proposal was a factor he would consider.
“If a candidate seriously addresses tax reform for expatriates, that could influence my decision,” he added.
Solomon Yue, chief executive of Republicans Overseas, said Republicans had fought to improve taxation policies for Americans abroad for years, adding it could “totally” impact the expatriate vote.
“I already see Democrats Abroad panicking,” he said.
Despite Trump’s tax pledge, he has also said, without evidence, that Democrats are pursuing the overseas vote to cheat. The Republican National Committee, which is largely integrated with the Trump campaign, has targeted overseas voting in legal challenges, notably Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. If the lawsuits are successful, they would decrease the number of Americans abroad who could vote.
The move prompted six House Democrats to write a letter to the defence secretary asking “if this lawsuit will affect the constitutional rights of service members” and referred to House Republicans’ allegations in the lawsuit as an attempt “to sow discord and misinformation.”
The challenge with attracting overseas voters, a group whose size is estimated by major political parties and outside experts to be somewhere between 4.4 million and 9 million, is that only a small fraction are believed to vote.
Unlike citizens of many other countries, US voters cannot line up on Election Day at their embassies. Instead, they must submit ballots to the states where they are registered, usually by mail.
According to the US Federal Voting Assistance Programme, most eligible overseas voters tend not to vote, with fewer than 8% estimated to have sent in ballots in the 2020 presidential election, compared to an overall turnout rate of 67%. The overseas voter participation rate in the 2022 mid-term elections was just 3.4%.
In a neighborhood in central Paris, volunteers set up a stand every Monday and Tuesday afternoons outside a cafe to try and up that percentage by helping Americans navigate the bureaucracies of state and local election laws.
Over the course of two hours, they coax people through the process of registering to vote or to fill out back-up ballots in case things went awry with their original one.
“The problem is that the instructions are not understandable,” said one of the volunteers, Tanya, a retired lawyer.
Claudie Le Corre, a resident of a southeastern Parisian suburb, came to the stand last week because she had not received her ballot from New York, where she’s registered. She believed she had been removed from the voter rolls and filled out paperwork to re-register.
“I am worried about the future, for our children, and all these populist movements – which include Donald Trump – worry me,” Le Corre said.
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Publish date : 2024-10-22 00:07:00
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