Are you a US citizen living outside the USA? There are some states where you can vote and some you cannot. https://t.co/2B3IZDOSd1
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) December 14, 2015
Today I found myself in a lengthy telephone conversation with a former (she renounced) U.S. citizen abroad. She was describing her difficulties in attempting to vote in the 2008 election. The United States thinks of itself as a democracy. But then again any country that allows a citizen to cast a ballot considers itself to be a democracy. The former East Germany even named it self the: “Deutsche Demokratische Rupublik“.
This got me thinking about the characteristics that a country must have to be entitled to call itself a “democracy”. It strikes me that for a country to call itself a “democracy” it must have at least the following characteristics:
1. It must allow it’s citizens to vote. The denial of the right to vote cannot be arbitrary and cannot be based on characteristics that are irrelevant to voting. For example: age may be a relevant criterion but face may not be a relevant criterion.
2. The “opportunity to vote” must be realistic. Voting must be logistically possible. For example, one must be able to vote without traveling thousands of miles. There must be sufficient time to vote.
3. The system must encourage candidates who are interested and capable of representing the votors.
4. The system must encourage and allow citizens to actually run for public office.
I was recently discussing “citizenship taxation” with a member of a prominent political organization. He suggested that as long as overseas Americans have the right to vote, citizenship taxation must be retained. Is there any basis for linking the right to vote (if there is one) to citizenship taxation.
From a U.S. perspective the “right to vote” in a strong indicator of U.S. citizenship. Those who have completed DS 4079 know that one of the questions asks about your voting habits in the U.S.A.
Those Americans abroad who have voted in U.S. election, it would be interesting to hear about your experiences in attempting to vote. Were you successful?
Those Americans abroad who have NOT voted. What is that makes you reluctant to vote?
Should the right to vote be linked to citizenship taxation?
Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand all have varying voting rights limits on long-term expatriates. For example, Canadians can no longer vote after living abroad for more than 5 years. That seems reasonable to me. I like the idea that very long-term expats cannot vote (In Canada). Citizenship taxation shouldn’t exist, period, so you can’t tie anything to it anyway.
There are some interesting points quoted from an Ontario court ruling about the Canadian law:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/20/canadian-election-14m-expatriates-barred-from-voting-after-court-ruling
It states the lack of tax payments to Canada by expats as part of the reason for the 5-year limit. Also,
“Permitting all non-resident citizens to vote would allow them to participate in making laws that affect Canadian residents on a daily basis, but have little to no practical consequence for their own daily lives,” …
I meant to add that I relinquished US citizenship 40 years ago.
With regard to the Canadian court decision, it’s a case of fair enough. Canada isn’t forcing foreign banks to conduct the ‘Canada Person’ witch hunt exercise and trying to tax them abroad as the US.
At the end of the day, the US isn’t going to win this battle in the long term.
FATCA is work in progress and changes will be made.
According to this article, the right of expatriates to vote is not universally recognized:
http://www.globalirish.ie/issues/emigrant-voting/
We have voted in every US election in our thirty-plus years outside the USA, and never had an issue, except to discover that one state allowed us to vote on everything, down to local School Board, while the state we allegedly moved to (because Hubby’s mother moved, and we use her address) only allows us to vote for federal offices. But in all cases, local voter registration offices have bent over backwards to make sure we got our ballots, either physically or as e-mailed PDFs.
That said, if there were ever a hope of the US implementing RBT, it wouldn’t surprise me if such a law would include a vindictive withdrawal of the right to vote. And I would be perfectly fine with that. It isn’t as if our votes have ever made a difference anyway.
The US government has made it clear with the Reed Amendment and passport revocation that US citizenship is bought and paid for with taxes. “Taxation without representation is tyranny” would therefore have a corollary in the minds of nationalistic homelanders: “Representation without taxation is unjustified.” It would be consistent with that world view to restrict voting rights based on whether we’re exempt from taxation, and I would not fight it.
The views of Americans Abroad are not “represented” the same way as homelanders as the vote and representation of the 8.7 million overseas get split up among the 50 states.
France seems to be onto a purer and truer form of “representation” for overseas French citizens. Of the 577 members of the French Assembly 11 are designated for overseas French persons. Instituted in 2010, the year of the Hire Act.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constituencies_for_French_residents_overseas
I don’t see how the right to vote is granted by taxation, as the right to vote is granted by citizenship, not taxation. Why not grant the right to vote to all US taxpayers whether they are a citizen or not then? It seems however that as with passport revocations, the US wishes to base our rights not on citizenship, but on taxation. This is going to cheapen US citizenship as it leads to uncertainty as to what the value of what US citizenship really is when it becomes taxation vs rights based.
Then there is the 47% who don’t pay taxes. So they don’t have the rights of citizens?
Oy vay, here we go. The 47% who don’t pay taxes are still subject to US taxation requirements, should their incomes rise to taxable levels. Assuming they’re US citizens and age 18 or over, they also have the right to vote. I’m not advocating tying voting rights to taxation. Yet if the US rescinded voting rights to non-taxpayer expats, this would be one case where the USA is not “exceptional”. Just like Canada. One could argue against it. And I probably would. But I’d shrug and walk away if my right to vote was taken away along with my obligation to file tax forms and report bank accounts.
Some countries have residence based voting for local elections. For example permanent resident foreigners can vote for municipal elections but not national elections.
Even though I can get more Canadian news thanks to the internet than I could previously, I still think it makes some sense that long term expatriates lose their vote. I’m mostly not affected by the kinds of Canadian laws that apply to residents, though a big exception is that I’m a second class Canadian citizen the same as some Canadian residents are.
Neither are expats allowed to utilise their 2nd amendment rights while visiting USA territory. That right is cut to residents of states. If one is not resident in a state one cannot purchase a handgun in that state.
@Barbara, “We have voted in every US election in our thirty-plus years outside the USA, and never had an issue”
Thats because you “while the state we allegedly moved to (because Hubby’s mother moved, and we use her address)”
Please understand I am NOT knocking you but you “never had an issue” because the State you lived in thinks you are/were resident in that state!!
I know lots of expats that do the same thing and many get local ballots too not realizing they are in fact registered to vote in a state that has an income tax, voting on all issues in that state and some of them, yes some of them have received notices from their voting state asking for state tax returns!
IF Ginny and Gwen want to vote in the USA…cough gag cough….what state will take them?
The US Courts ruled that asking for identification when you show up to vote is unreasonable and infringes on your rights. If that is so what about all disenfranchisment of expats?
@All, what does George think of this?
I relinquished a decade ago with formal USG acknowledgement but no CLN. To be honest I did not have a clue about CLNs and if I had it was not useful.
I never tried to vote having left the USA.
Philosophically, I believe that when someone leaves a country they should no longer vote there. If I were to move from Ohio to Arizona should I still vote in Ohio elections? Should I still vote in Ohio if I keep a second home in Ohio? The reason I believe this is that you are no longer a stakeholder, that said being a stakeholder goes both ways.
Fast forward to today and post FATCA. Every single ex-pat and former pat I run into I discourage them from registering children, voting in the USA and not keeping a US license! To be blunt, its more forms of indica and I believe the more indica you have the more likely you are to be burned.
IF you have left the USA then please leave it behind. Otherwise its like “staying in touch” with the ex-boyfriend, ex-girlfriend, ex-partner/spouse.
Everyone has an “ex” of some sort. I sometimes think of the several “ex’s” in my past and it does not go beyond thinking. The idea of just having a cup of coffee with a past-ex, too many problems can arise.
With regards to voting in the USA, what do you get out of it? Other than some inner feeling, nothing. Your vote makes no difference.
One of my kids entrapped by USC asked dear father about voting in the USA. I had to tell them nothing positive would happen if they voted and by the way registering to vote will go hand in hand with registereing for the draft which is going to affect all young people including women.
Having lived in the UK virtually all my adult life I have never voted in a U.S. election because I no longer felt a connection with U.S. life. I did not buy US newspapers (no internet in those days), did not know about the politicians running for office, was not involved with any ‘overseas’ organisations and quite frankly didn’t understand why I should have a right to contribute to decision making in a.country I no longer had anything to do with and would never live in again.
With CBT and FATCA the U.S. came screaming back into my life and forced me to reconnect – and then forced me to renounce so I could lead a normal life again.
I migrated in 2007, intending to never return to the US. I had a partner in my new country & was bringing my children with me. All ties (for me) were severed.
When we became citizens, I found I needed 5 years of tax returns before I could relinquish. Unfortunately, the way it was worded sounded like 5 years after taking our oath! Only later did I understand I could have relinquished the next day!
I never gave the five year thing a second thought as my adopted country has a waiting period from when you become resident to applying for citizenship…it seemed reasonable the US would make you wait 5 years to “be sure”…
In the meantime, I did vote in USA presidential (also AU)– but then again, I was still a US citizen & my mother always admonished us to vote! I never traveled again on my US passport since my AU citizenship.
Now, whether my vote went through, who knows?
I think that the details need to be put onto the DoS website, along with all embassy websites, about what NOT TO DO if it matters to outcomes, re: relinquishing.
This while thing stinks to high heavens!
@ George, I disagree with you when you state, “…you ‘never had an issue’ because the State you lived in thinks you are/were resident in that state!” In all cases–California, Georgia, Vermont, and Oregon–the voter registration authorities classified us as “permanently residing outside the state”, hence we never had to renew our status for receiving absentee ballots. There was no question in those states of being mistaken for ‘resident in that state’, not of being deemed taxable by the act of voting absentee. In fact, I know of another ex-Californian who offered himself up for sacrifice. He wanted taxpayer status in California in order to obtain in-state tuition status for his kid. He offered to pay back taxes, if required, since it still meant a substantial savings on university costs. The state tax authority turned him down (for good reason, I think; he was trying to defraud the system).
In fact, I disagree with you that any state claims taxpayer status based on voting. If I’m wrong, then please name which states do so.
Regarding your opinion about expats who continue to vote in US elections: I did not disown the USA when I left. My leaving was not a political or moral act. My husband and I simply followed curiosity and opportunity abroad. Although it’s been two decades since we declared to each other that we have no intention of ever living again in the USA, I see nothing wrong in exercising the one right left to me as a US citizen abroad, which is casting a ballot. Unable or unwilling to get citizenship in the unsavorily-governed Asian countries in which we have lived, we’ve had no qualms about keeping US citizenship, or participating in US democratic elections, which were and are still our right. Of course, since our OMG moment in October 2014 regarding FATCA and the true nature of the US government, my feelings have changed from benign indifference toward America to outright enmity. Nevertheless, if I am still a US citizen next year, yes I will vote in primaries, primarily in order to give support to Rand Paul, or perhaps another Republican who comes close to being sincere about repealing FATCA and CBT. And I certainly don’t plan to be a US citizen by the time of the 2018 elections.
Taxation without representation is not fixed by the ability or the right to vote. Indeed, for expats there is no way to fix the problem in anything more than a symbolic way–and here I mean if they gave expats their own representatives and two senators, they would still be completely outnumbered and overrun by Homelanders’ representatives and senators. Furthermore, the agenda of Homelanders abroad would overrun the interests of expats. No thank you to the vote, and no thank you to representation.
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2011/12/13/is-it-taxation-without-representation-if-you-can-vote-damn-right/
The issue of overseas voting is more complex — and in some ways simpler — than the original posting, and the referenced link https://t.co/2B3IZDOSd1 suggests. For one thing, “residence” and “domicile” mean quite different things in Common Law jurisdictions. That my daughters might never have set foot in my state of domicile does not change the fact that it could be their domicile of origin and did not stop them from getting driving licenses and voting there. (Their connection to the USA is so tenuous that their children, born abroad, are not US citizens.)
In two states (Florida and Louisiana) one can elect domicile by filing the prescribed form with a county clerk. Getting a driving license can lead to semi-automatic registration to vote anywhere in the USA. Even in New York (ostensibly a “federal-ballot-only state) when my wife was offered only a federal ballot I objected on the grounds that I was a federal employee abroad and they sent her a full ballot.
According to the State Department, in all states “[t]he Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) guarantees United States citizens overseas the right to vote in federal elections in the United States. (Federal elections include primaries, general and special elections for the President, Vice President, U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives to Congress.)”
There is a caveat however: a number of states, perhaps most of them, levy income tax on the basis of domicile as well as residence (NY, CA, IL and a few others have exceptions for some or most expats). FL has no income tax, but voting somewhere else can lead to a tax bill. VA, MD, DC are notorious for taxing certain categories of expats and levying on in-state property and bank accounts if there is any.
Some states, Florida notoriously, publish the names and personal details of registered voters who have not opted out: http://flvoters.com
As with everything, do the research first.
US tax code creates a fiction in which expats are residents of DC. US tax law thus acknowledges that US citizens abroad do not have representation in Congress, since DC has no such representation.
Vote if you like. But you are not being taxed fairly.
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/01/03/do-united-states-persons-differ-substantially-from-residents-of-washington-d-c/
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/08/21/fair-tax-unfair-tax-or-when-is-it-paying-my-fair-share/
@Barbara, The Reed Amendment created not a little farce when it comes to human rights. It made expatriation for tax purposes punishable by legislation (not court), and is thus a bill of attainder (i.e., unconstitutional). Not only so, but it allowed a person to relinquish US citizenship but then banned them from the USA while still taxing them. Hence, it was taxation without entry rights, taxation without citizenship, taxation without representation, and taxation without a vote. Only true blue sociopaths could come up with a law like that.
@Barbara
Canadians don’t become “non-taxpayers” when we depart Canada, as we are expected to pay a departure tax upon exiting. In a world where the right to vote is dependant on paying taxes, Canadians would still be allowed to vote.
“Permitting all non-resident citizens to vote would allow them to participate in making laws that affect Canadian residents on a daily basis, but have little to no practical consequence for their own daily lives”
This is precisely why Nate has refused to vote in US elections even when I actively encouraged him to vote against certain candidates, way back in the days before FATCA. He said wouldn’t be reaping any of the benefits that a resident would and felt uncomfortable contributing to the outcome of “their” election (his words. He’s dual but sees himself as undeniably Canadian first, foremost, to the exclusion of all others).
In a world where the US constitution meant something, US citizens should now be allowed to enter and exit the US without a US passport.
I had voted from abroad a few times before renouncing US a couple of years ago and receiving a CLN . I continued to receive ballots and even a request to participate in a voters abroad survey – the latest more than 2 years after renouncing. I sent the unopened ballot and a cover letter by registered post (Track and trace) asking to have my information removed from all voter registration lists. Obviously there is some lack of coordination and I wanted to have proof that I had completely checked out of the US. I suggest others do the same – it takes a bit of time and money, but is a good way to indicate that there is no continuing relationship.
Although my DNA is 100% American I have lived outside the United States for over 55 years and for ALL of my adult life. I have never considered myself politically an American so have never voted in a US election, although it is, technically, my right. I have been fortunate enough, unlike Barbara, to find myself living in a country in which I have been welcomed to become a part of the political process, so it is in Canada that I cast my ballot.
To paraphrase George and Old English, why would I presume to tell Americans in the US who should govern them? I don’t live there and their concerns are not mine. I think Americans in the US should thank me for this attitude by releasing me from their ridiculous international taxation scheme. Instead they continue trying to force me to pay for their roads and bridges that I never drive on and to pay down their national debt of which I am not responsible for creating one dime!
I want to quickly add that my comment in no way should be construed to mean that I think people who do vote should pay tax. Absolutely not! I am just so p.o.’d that the US would have the audacity to think that they can tax non-residents for anything when they receive *nothing* in return.