Most citizens of the U.S. living outside its borders have the right to vote in the 2020 election. Due to a culmination of factors, U.S. citizens abroad are understandably anxious about having their ballots count this year. The current president casting doubt on the legitimacy of mail-in ballots should not deter us. On the contrary, it should embolden us. American expat votes matter in 2020: the more ballots Mr Trump tries to wrongly delegitimize, the more he will delegitimize himself.
National Voter Registration Day was September 22
The end of September means that the window for U.S. expats to request a ballot and then send it back is slowly starting to close. If you’ve been thinking about it / putting it off, now is the time to finally decide. Waiting until the last minute (the end of October) to send in your ballot only complicates the matter of counting votes in November. The homeland will have enough problems without us expats adding to it with procrastination. If you have questions about the process while living outside the States, here’s an FAQ to help you along.
Also, you might be interested in the podcast episode found at the bottom of this post, By the People: How to make sure your vote is counted.
Voting by absentee ballot (mail-in ballots)
Outside of petty litigation from the billionaire who currently heads the nation, voting by mail also poses new challenges for states unfamiliar with the process. Some citizens of these states may also find the mail-in ballots a bit challenging when compared with voting booths. The thing about mail-in ballots is that once you start using them, they become normal after an election or two. You may find it a piece of cake, or you may find the process a bit of a pain. Whatever the case, American expat votes matter in 2020.
Here are the methods you can use to return your ballot. If you choose to use the diplomatic mail pouch of the U.S. Consulate General in Montreal, it can be found at 1134 Sainte-Catherine Street West. Normal business hours there are Monday to Friday, 7:30a.m. to 5:00p.m., but remember that we are in the middle of a pandemic (so this service may be disrupted).
A leader who wants to block votes
Mr Trump will fetidly plague the 2020 election results with the lawsuits he has filed and will continue filing. Since suing to retain power and wealth has been the modus operandi of his entire privileged life, nobody should be surprised when he sues to protect his ego (at the expense of democracy). This is an actual conspiracy, not a theory: the president himself openly admits he’s conspiring with his party to defile election results. The doubt sewn through legal Kabuki theater is all he needs to keep his cult intact. He is, if nothing else, a showman.
Here’s an episode of Trump, Inc., a joint reporting project from WNYC Studios and ProPublica. In it, Andrea Bernstein and Meg Cramer reveal the president’s recent round of attacks on democracy as he continues to panic about his re-election prospects.
What you are actually choosing
While it may be true that “toxicity is the core incentive of any two-party system”, that’s what we are still stuck with this year. Minor parties are of course on the ballot too, but think back to Al Gore and the consequences of his loss. Today we must choose either democracy or Trumpism. Please, put aside any misgivings about the process: American expat votes matter in 2020.