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 Editorials | Issues | February 2007 
One in 5 Overseas Americans Unable to Vote in Elections
 Brian Knowlton - International Herald Tribune
One in five Americans overseas who sought to vote in the midterm elections in November was unable to do so, often because the ballot arrived late, or not at all, according to a survey.
The figure comes from a study by the Overseas Vote Foundation, or OVF, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that attempts to help Americans abroad register to vote and obtain absentee ballots.
A report from the foundation actually portrayed its main result as "good news" that 80 percent of respondents negotiated the registration and voting process successfully.
The others faced "a persistent set of issues," including unfamiliarity with the absentee voting process and confusion over legal voting requirements that vary from state to state, said Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, executive director of the foundation. At a conference in Washington she told state and federal election officials and volunteers that they needed to keep "chipping away at the boulder," as did her group.
The findings were based on 4,506 responses to an email message survey of 46,144 overseas civilian and military voters who had provided e-mail addresses to the foundation.
Because of the self-selection involved, and the fact that only people with Internet access could respond, the survey was not scientific. But foundation officials said it provided insights into the range of overseas voting experiences, and the sometimes high level of frustration when things went poorly.
Younger voters and those attempting to vote from overseas for the first time had the lowest rates of success, according to the survey results. Half of first- time voters succeeded in casting a ballot. Registration is complicated by the fact that Americans overseas may not register nationally but must apply in the state where they last resided, using an address that might be decades old — or perhaps no longer exist.
Click HERE to see the OVF 2006 Post Election Survey Report. |
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