One the 10th of August, The Isaac Brock Society reported difficulties in making donations from abroad to the Romney campaign, with one being unable to select the country where one lived. The Obama campaign appears to be experiencing the same issue. Did Romney hear Americans living abroad after the issue was reported? On his donation page, there is now an option to donate from abroad:
To good to be true? Let’s have a look and indeed, it has a long 
list of countries to choose from. It’s not sorted, but hey, that’s more than what the Obama campaign could do. Right on Romney! Yet, there is more to an international address than just the country, believe it or not. Other aspects of the international address need to be taken into consideration too, such as the telephone number, the zip code and even the state. You see, not all countries in the world have the same phone number format as the US. Antarctica, for example, only has 5 digits. Tasmania has 8 digits.
Yet, Romney’s campaign page expects for every country in the world to have 10 digits. In the world beyond America, one may also include the country code prefixed with a +, but Romney’s international page doesn’t like that.
Next, there is the issue with the zip code. Not all of the nations in the world have a zip code with 5 digits. Some have 4 digits and others have letters. Yet, Romney’s international page only accepts 5 digits.
Finally, not every nation in the world has 50 states named the same as the 50 US states. Some nations may have 5, 10, 35 or maybe even 66 States, and that’s not AL repeated 66 times. With some countries, one might not even need to list the state. Yet, Romney’s international page requires that one selects a US state no matter where in the world one lives.
Anyways, the Romney campaign now has an international page with an unsorted list of countries. It’s not usable yet, but it’s a good start for a big advanced nation. With maybe a bit of luck, it might even be perfected slowly over the next 4 years to become usable! Now, that’s a grand beginning for an awesome foreign policy, American-style!
*There is a very simple soluition to this. Congress onlyh needs to enact FATCA-style legislation to obligate every other nation to adopt 10 digit telephone numbers, 5-digit zip-code style postal codes and rename it own political divisions to use the same names as our 50 states..
I am sure the nations of the world will all receive this with open arms. After all, the US kknows what is best.
@Petros- the operative word is “while” which is then linked to a U.S. address. In other words you are just temporarily absent.
You say that it is a good start but a good start to what? It just seems like the same thing and as such only sends the message that “citizenship” based taxation is here to stay.
It is just a big waste of time.
It just occurred to me that maybe you were being sarcastic by saying anything positive about this act of stupidity.
Roger.. LOL.
Isn’t it a little risky for them to be be taking money from people abroad? Is it possible that non-US citizens with ZERO US ties “could” contribute to a presidential candidate? Oh my.. is it fair that a candidate could get a major contribution from a Middle Eastern potentate or a South American drug lord in exchange for favours later?
The people who make the websites are applying simple rules to the entry boxes. Very common stuff. A web designer from Kentucky, who has never lived abroad, isn’t going to understand the situation of Americans living abroad. So it’s not really fair to attack any candidates based on their websites. We don’t have the voice… how are they going to remember us? That being said, if one candidate was REALLY aligned to expat issues, I’m sure that they would get NUMEROUS extra votes they hadn’t been counting on.
As someone developing an internationalized website myself, it’s not easy.
It’s great news that they seem to have responded to your previous inquiry and added a form for donating from abroad! Adding input validation for input fields is really not easy given how many different formats there are around the world.
If I were to advise their web developer, I’d say:
–For state, change it from dropdown to an input (so users can type whatever they need), don’t make it required, and probably better to label it “state/province.”
–For zip code, don’t validate the # of digits, don’t make it a required field, and label it “postal code” while you’re at it.
–Phone numbers are a PITA. But first things first, that JS validation is for U.S. phone numbers. So don’t use it for this field at all. Don’t make this a required field. Then, you really have three options here:
1.) For the best way, see how Twitter does it. They give a country dropdown and then automatically prepend the country code onto the phone number field, so users don’t have to worry about this. Then store the country code and phone number separately in the database.
2.) Or, the crude way, for now. Allow all characters (even punctuation) and just sanitize to strip tags and only validate server side that it’s less than a maximum length. If this isn’t being used by an automated tool to call people, then standardization of the phone number in the database won’t matter anyway. It’s more important to keep the international country code separated using the user’s punctuation. But really, this is crude.
3.) The middle ground, probably the best compromise. Create two inputs, one for the country code and one for the phone number (so you get the benefit of storing these separately in the database for proper storage). And then don’t validate anything on the front end, except that both are filled in if either of the two contain any data. On the server side just strip anything that isn’t a digit. Then you’re still storing them separately and it’s easy to set up. This is the one I’d do to start since it’s quick. Then improve from this by transitioning to #1 like Twitter (using a dropdown of country names and country codes), if time allows. Also, I wouldn’t make this a required field unless the law requires it for political donations (?), adding more required field inputs just lowers participation, so make it as easy as possible.
My 2 cents.
Part of me agrees with RecalcitrantExpat’s feeling in that I’m actually okay with not being able to donate and even not have any representation while living abroad so long as they also leave me alone when I’m not living there with no forms to file at all and no citizenship-based taxation. Meanwhile though, might as well give money to a non-Obama vote.
Like all gestures to help USC’s abroad, it’s token only.
Oh sure!! They can change the laws when it suits them!! To get their greedy hands on our hard earned money!!
Did you know that there are LAWS that PREVENT our representatives in the House and Senate from corresponding with expats!?!?
I tried contacting my representatives about a problem with the American side of my life and I got this response… “due to congressional laws regulating contact with people outside the US, we are prevented from any communication with constituents not residing in this district”
O
They can contact me via email and snail mail asking for my vote and my money, but I’m not allowed to ask for their help in their capacity as MY representative!?!?
WTF people!!
@Marilyn- I wonder exactly which laws are those? I
@marilyn
Laws like that certain leave us without any practical representation, don’t they?
*I have done a google search and find no reference to any such law that would prohibit members of congress from having contact with US expats. I have seen many of them talking to expats when I have been in Washington. As an expat once testified before the House Ways and Means Comittee hearing and also the Senate Finance Comiittee.
I was questioned by Congressmen and none of them were dragged out in chains for having had contact with an expat. As a matter of fact several of us testified at both of these hearings some years back.
Any congressman who would sign a letter like that should be impeached!
@Michael, the most important element of citizenship-based taxation is the international address. These many address issues show that America actually has a residency-based tax system, since it only accepts US addresses. With a residency-based tax system, threatening or even punishing Americans living abroad on tax issues is politically damaging.
As long as I continue to be a US citizen, then it is my duty to express this problem, for its own benefit. The US government can respond to such in one of two ways. It can either change the current system to become one of citizenship-based taxation, or it can fix its current system of residency-based taxation.
In other words @swisspinoy, the US can’t be one system and act like another. Right on.
*Marilyn, with my blog, I’m collecting non-responses from US politicians. We are told that we are represented and my experience so far shows that Americans abroad are only represented by Rand Paul (maybe), regardless of which State they live in.
If you want to increase the chances of getting a response, then you may have to pick a zip code in that State or district. Rand Paul responded to a zip code of ‘00000’, which is above and beyond what most US politicians are willing to do for Americans abroad. However, he may have incorrectly assumed that I’m a Kentucky voter abroad. In my view, I’m a US consulate in Zürich voter who could “return” to any US State or none at all.
A possible reason as to why I may not be getting any political responses is because the zip code of my mail forwarder differs from the voters administration office zip code where I am registered to vote, since Americans abroad may not live in a mail forwarder for voting purposes. I documented this in: “You are an invalid resident!”
*
recalcitrantexpat, yes, I was being sarcastic. Americans abroad have no representation and, as one local stated, one can only be stupid for not having renounced US citizenship already. Thus, I must admit that I am still officially stupid, for now.
*The Obama team responded! Americans abroad can donate to democrats here:
https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/o2012-americans-abroad-donate
It looks to be international-compatible and the link to this can be found here:
https://contribute.barackobama.com/donation/index.html?pa=NQ==&source=20120711-QD-Heroshot
I don’t know if this was already there before or not. I didn’t think of looking. I’ll now make a better effort to look to see if politicians have an “American Abroad contact page”.
@swisspinoy, Progress! (not perfection). 🙂
@geeez, I’ve made several contributions to U.S. campaigns now in this election cycle and I can attest to the fact that they do check. Got emails from the campaign staff (very politely worded) asking for verification that I am a U.S. citizen.
@michael, I’ve worked for several French multi-national companies on IT projects like common HR and finance databases and websites that are meant to be international and I know what you mean about it not being easy. I’ve never seen one (not one) go live without a lot of last minute (or after the fact) fixes. So much to think about. The billing was the absolute worst. It was so bad on one project I did in Asia that my French management actually asked me if they couldn’t get away with just doing the billing in ENGLISH. I fell to the floor laughing when I heard that one (just try sending a bill to a big Japanese company in Japan only in English – yep, they would just love that). 🙂
It amazes me that this sort of issue has been going on for years when dealing with US organizations from abroad.
*I moved abroad years ago for various reasons. Not once did it occur to me to contribute money to any of the political parties back in the good old USA. None of the parties and their respective unrepresentatives have done anything other than restrict my freedoms more and more over time.
*Rich, the interesting thing about this topic is that it is a situation where stateside Americans want something from expats. They want free money that grows on trees. To pick this free money growing on the trees, we told them that we must have a place to enter our address, which is not a stateside address, since local credit cards require local details. Stateside Americans, wanting free money, responded and provided the address so that we can send in the free cash. Now, we are supposed pick it from the trees to send it their way, since they provided us with what our credit cards need to give them free money.
In the other direction, contacting representation means that we want something from them. To contact them, they require an address, but not our address. So, we tell them that we only have our address and in return they do nothing since no change means that we can’t contact them and thus they don’t need or want to do anything, since we are not giving them free money by requesting representation. We paid for the representation, though, with citizenship-based taxation, but that’s not free money and thus no action is taken. Our voice is ignored and forgotten, but they will do what it takes to earn free money from us
Citizenship based taxation is the mechanism that requires all USP’s to pay US tax regardless of where we live. The fact that we live outside the US makes it solely our problem; a problem that the US government doesn’t seem willing to remedy, in spite being told by NTA Nina Olson that “The complexity of international tax law, combined with the administrative burden placed on these taxpayers, creates an environment where taxpayers who are trying their best to comply simply cannot,”. The current US government, through its stick approach and its inability to remedy the inherent compliance problems has created a renunciation vs compliance machine. To act responsibly and make the problems go away, the US should either ban it’s citizens from taking residency out of the country or switch to residency based taxation, not set them up for draconian penalties for non-compliance.
CDO is an acronym for the dual US insanities that inhabit the severed hemispheres of what the zombie monster still perceives as a brain:
Collateralized Debt Obligation (shoot self in foot)
Collateral Damage Overseas (shoot extraterritorials on sight)
Just got off the phone with a poor unsuspecting Obama campaigner who called me from Florida. She kept repeating ‘I find this hard to believe”…
She did however promise to look into citizenship based taxation, FBAR and FATCA, since she had never heard of them before. I told her that Obama has my vote if he undid all the damage his administration has done and makes real efforts to improve the lives of non-resident US citizens before November. What are the chances that I’ll vote Obama? A snow ball in hell’s I’d say.
@All
This is great progress. The Romney campaign has gone from no awareness of US citizens abroad to some awareness of US citizens abroad. His campaign is to be congratulated for this.
1. Romney should get the vote of US citizens abroad. The simple fact is that, with the addition of Ryan, Romney is the candidate more likely to promote tax reform. The idea of tax reform from Obama is laughable. If you have any hope of surviving as a US citizen abroad and/or as a financially solvent person, then tax reform is essential
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/08/12/addition-of-ryan-to-republican-ticket-should-be-good-for-u-s-citizens-abroad/
2. Obama has to go. The goal of U.S. citizens abroad should be to assist in any way possible to get Obama out of office. Make no mistake, our problems are the direct result of the Obama administration.
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/07/15/fatca-fbar-ovdi-ex-patriot-act-fatca-form-8938-where-it-came-from-how-it-came-about-what-it-means-for-u-s-citizens-abroad/
3. I want to add when it comes to U.S. citizens abroad:
There are not Republican US citizens abroad, there are not Democrat US citizens abroad, there are only US citizens abroad.
(Sound familiar? Or do you want to hear more of the “Hopey, Changey, stuff.)
There are only US citizens abroad. And if you hold any hope of reversing any of the effects of the Obama years, then you do what you can to get him voted out of office!
This means to vote and to vote for Romney.
4. Romney is a pragmatist. He is too far to the right to be an Obama Democrat and his to far to the left to be a Tea Party Republican. Also, he has experience with offshore bank accounts. He is the candidate who has the capacity to see the lunacy of FATCA. And he is the better managerial experience.
https://renounceuscitizenship.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/open-letter-to-mitt-romney/
For those of you who aren’t enthusiastic about Romney, remember:
The enemy of your enemy is your friend!
5. This comment is completely non-partisan. It is simply a recognition that Obama has destroyed the lives of US citizens abroad and MUST GO!
*Dear renounceuscitizenship,
I simply do not believe that there is any difference between the Democrips and the Rebloodicans! Therefore donating money to them does not help me (us) one bit. Do not get me wrong, I still vote. I voted with my feet. I left to live outside the best country on this planet. I vote with my money. I do not hold any US dollar assets. I do file US tax returns and all other forms they want, but I structure my affairs such that I do owe only little or no US taxes. I pray that my children will be free again some day.
@Rich
I like the Jesse Ventura book too. And I agree, but my point is that this is not an issue of voting for a Party. This is an issue of voting for the person who is the most likely to behave in a way that will make our lives tolerable.
The fact is that it is the Obama administration that has done so much damage. Therefore another administration could reverse this. In my comment, I closed by saying that this is not an issue of voting for a particular party. This is an issue of voting for the better candidate. In this case, there could be no worse candidate than Barack Obama. His conduct over the last four years indicates that he will not be helpful to our cause. The only way to get rid of him is to vote for Romney
Put it another way:
1. You can vote for Obama and guarantee that no assistance will be coming.
2. You can vote against Obama and take a chance that things could be better.
or
You can simply do nothing. But, if you do nothing, then nothing will happen.
Am assuming that you (if you like Jesse Ventura’s stuff) don’t believe in the party system.
George Washington himself was hostile to parties. The independents are likely to decide this election (they elected Obama). Why not as in Independent, cast your vote. In so doing, you might help your children to be free!
Possible letter to the next generation:
https://renounceuscitizenship.wordpress.com/2012/08/21/letter-of-a-canadian-businessman-to-his-dual-u-s-canada-citizen-son-on-the-occasion-of-his-high-school-graduation/