Voting in the US elections from Greece
Greeks and other Europeans are deeply curious about the November 5 US elections. Most of them recognize that the outcome of these elections will affect their country and themselves personally. Many of them say they wish the international community had a vote.
Actually, a significant number of Greeks DO have a vote. In fact, they have enough votes, if they had used them, to have changed the outcome in previous elections. There are millions of people with US citizenship living outside the United States – 80,000 or more in Greece alone. Most of them have the right to vote by mail or email in federal elections for president and Congress.
Receiving a US absentee ballot is Greece is straightforward, a matter of sending in the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA), which all US states accept both as a voter registration form and as a ballot request. Two websites will generate that form, customized for each state.
- fvap.gov (a US government site that helps military and overseas voters)
- votefromabroad.org (paid for by Democrats Abroad and subject to EU data privacy laws).
Most (but not all) states allow the FPCA to be returned by email. Both sites give you full contact information for your county election official to confirm receipt of the form and ask any questions.
By federal law, ballots must be emailed to overseas voters on September 21 or as soon after that as the ballot request is processed. The ballot and cover envelope are simple pdf documents. In many states, the completed ballot can be uploaded to the election website, or emailed back. In many states, however, the ballot must be signed in ink on the outside of the cover envelope and returned by mail. International mail, including the diplomatic pouch, is slower now than it was a century ago. This means ballots may arrive too late to be counted if requested too close to the formal registration deadline in October.
The websites walk voters through the application process, asking for a US street address and a US social security or passport number. Most voters use the most recent US residential address they have used before. First-time voters can normally use the last US address where they or their parents resided. A few states (Indiana for example) will not register you if you never lived in the state (e.g., born in Greece to parents who returned after getting US citizenship).
One reason only 5 percent of overseas US citizens vote is that some acquaintance has misled them, saying that if they vote then the Internal Revenue Service will come after them for unpaid taxes. There are indeed US states that insist that those who vote in a state/local election should also pay state taxes. But this doesn’t apply to the presidential/congressional ballot: The IRS is prohibited from looking at voter rolls.
Voting isn’t complicated. Yes, California thinks voters should study a 100-page booklet describing complex, often deceptive state ballot initiatives. Texans get to elect their local court judges. A citizen living overseas with no plans to return may receive only the much simpler federal ballot. There the choice is for one president/VP, one representative, and probably one senator from a list of two to eight parties: Republican, Democrats, Libertarians, Greens, independents… There are many online resources, for example the non-partisan League of Women Voters (lwv.org) for finding out about the candidates.
Often the hardest part of voting, in the 22 states that make it necessary, is printing out the C4 size ballot envelope. Limited assistance is available via the US Embassy’s American Citizen Services unit, which also allows voters to return their ballot in a postage-paid envelope via the diplomatic pouch (free but slow). Democrats Abroad Greece (a local branch of the US Democratic Party, 2023/24 chair Brady Kiesling) and Republicans Overseas Hellenic Chapter (a private organization run by Jonathan Constantine) also assist voters. VotefromAbroad.org has a 24-hour help line staffed by volunteers in the event a ballot is lost or challenged.
In deciding whether to take the hour or so needed to vote in these elections (sometimes requiring a trip to the embassy or Greek post office), US citizens in Greece should remember that they will be voting not only for themselves but also, in a very real sense, for their Greek friends or relatives and for the future of the planet they share.
