With polls tight, US election campaigns target overseas voters

Bob Vallier, a Paris resident who has mostly lived outside the United States for the past 30 years, has already voted in his home state of Michigan for the Nov. 5 election.

"I know that whatever happens in America affects the rest of the world. I know this because I've lived in the rest of the world," said Vallier, the LGBTQ+ caucus chair for Democrats Abroad.

Vallier's vote, and the ballots of other Americans overseas, may be crucial in the tight races of battleground states like his. Michigan is one of the election's most competitive states, with latest polls showing Democratic candidate Kamala Harris holding a slight edge over Republican rival Donald Trump.

The Democratic National Committee estimates that 1.6 million U.S. voters abroad are eligible to vote in one of the seven battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - that will likely determine the outcome of the election.

A U.S. 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, October 21, 2024Reuters

The group is believed to favor Democrats. Among people who used Vote From Abroad, a nonpartisan voter support tool linked to the DNC, three-quarters of overseas voters in the 2020 election said they were Democrats.

So for the first time in a presidential election the DNC has given Democrats Abroad funding - around $300,000 - to help register Americans overseas to vote and ramp up its mail-in voting operations and other efforts. It has taken out ads on social media urging Americans abroad to send in their ballots.

"This election will be won on the margins, and every single vote counts," said DNC spokesperson Maddy Mundy in a statement. "We're going to win this election by engaging every eligible voter, no matter where they live."

Trump's campaign looks at tax red tape

Republican presidential candidate Trump is also after American expatriates. Earlier this month he said he would end the double taxation of overseas Americans.

The former president's campaign has not offered further detail on how the policy would work but it could end a burdensome requirement that mandates U.S. citizens to file income taxes in the United States regardless of where they live.

A U.S. citizen abroad voter holds a voter registration and absentee ballot request form and an envelope which will contain an official absentee balloting material 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, October 21, 2024Reuters

While Americans abroad do not have to pay U.S. tax on their first $126,500 in earned income and are eligible for some foreign tax credits, 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 U.S. 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 Pennsylvania. If the lawsuit is successful, it would decrease the number of Americans abroad who could vote.

The move to try to block some overseas votes prompted six Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives to write a letter to the defense secretary asking if the lawsuit would "affect the constitutional rights of service members" and referred to House Republicans' allegations as an attempt "to sow discord and misinformation."

Two other lawsuits in Michigan and North Carolina filed by Republican officials that aimed to block some Americans living overseas from voting in those states were thrown out by judges on Monday.

The hurdles to vote

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, U.S. 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.

A ballot box dedicated to the symbolic votes of American expatriates and tourists for the U.S. presidential election is displayed for the traditional Straw Vote at Harry's Bar in Paris, October 17, 2024Reuters

According to the U.S. Federal Voting Assistance Program, most eligible overseas voters tend not to vote, with fewer than 8% estimated to have sent in ballots in the 2020 presidential election, compared with an overall turnout rate of 67%. The overseas voter participation rate in the 2022 midterm 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 backup 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.