The American expats vote.

AuteurBlake, Chris

After a still highly divisive and controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision, George W. Bush became the U.S. president by a majority of 537 votes in the state of Florida. That margin was well within the total of Florida's overseas voters. This time, regardless of which candidate they support, Americans living in Switzerland are determined to make their vote count by registering in large numbers.

Apparently hearing me speaking English with an American accent, a middle-aged Swiss woman approached, shouting, "I'm for John Kerry!" Gauging my cautious reaction, she continued, "Bush makes war like a criminal!" Despite the force of her assertions, I was not surprised. I, like many Americans, am now familiar with the, sometimes hostile, scepticism that follows us around Europe since George W. Bush moved into the White House. This year's American presidential election is expected to be of great importance and emotions will be running high. Due to that, the overseas vote will definitely have a role to play.

The ACA

Warren Furth, co-founder and present director of the non-partisan Geneva-based organisation for American Citizens Abroad ('ACA') says the keen interest in this election is obvious. "Many Americans living abroad didn't vote in earlier elections. It was too much trouble or they thought it just wasn't worth it. This year in Switzerland alone, I would say there are two to three times as many people who are registered to vote."

According to USA Today, it is a worldwide phenomenon. In August, it reported that early as July 9, overseas Federal Post Card Applications for voter registration outnumbered all of election 2000's requests by at least 90,000.

The Help America Vote Act

Following the lessons of the previous elections, the U.S. government created the optimistically titled "Help America Vote Act of 20022 Amongst others things, it intends to make the voting registration process easier for Americans living abroad. As a result, numerous websites were created to facilitate their efforts. This, however, is little consolation for the ACA, who, although are eager to do their part in promoting democracy, have a relatively small staff. ACA boasts a mailing list of more than 8000 addresses in 158 countries and they are constantly inundated with requests from people who want to register to vote.

"The objective is to highlight the key issues of concern to the American overseas community. In general, we try to impress the importance of the overseas...

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