⁍ U.S. voters abroad are going to new lengths to ensure their ballots are counted.


⁍ Activists from both major parties say they are seeing unprecedented demand for help registering and voting.


⁍ President Donald Trump has long railed against mail-in ballots, saying they contribute to voter fraud.


– With less than two weeks to go until Election Day, Americans living abroad are scrambling to get their ballots returned in time. “We have got considerably more voters reaching out to us. We have certainly had more than 4 to 5 times the contacts that we had in 2016,” John Foote, a voting assistant with Republicans Overseas in Thailand, tells Reuters. Americans living abroad have the right to vote in federal elections, with their votes counted in the state where they or their parents last lived. States have strict deadlines to register, get a ballot, and send it back, though a Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot can be used by voters who don’t receive theirs in time. Overseas voters, civilian and military, have voted by post in US elections for generations. US law guarantees Americans living abroad the right to vote in federal elections, with votes counted in the state where they or their parents last lived. States have strict deadlines to register, get a ballot, and send it back, though a Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot can be used by voters who don’t receive theirs in time. In past elections, the overseas military vote has leaned Republican, but expatriate civilians in many countries lean towards Democrats. In Paris, Republicans sense the Democrats upping their game after approaching the 2016 election with perhaps too much confidence Hillary Clinton would win. “They are hyper-active in the sense of getting people out. It wasn’t like that in 2016…. They didn’t feel there was a threat from Trump,” Randy Yaloz, head of Republicans Overseas France, tells the Washington Post.



Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-elections-overseas-voters/fax-mail-or-dhl-overseas-us-voters-fret-ahead-of-nov-3-election-idUSKCN26E25L