As a government teacher, I have spent many a class period explaining the intricacies of the party nomination process and the Electoral College to young people: safe states, swing states, the 23rd amendment (look it up), proportional representation versus winner-take-all, why Iowa & New Hampshire go first (no, there’s no good reason), Super Delegates, contested conventions, etc. This school year, as a government teacher overseas, the number of questions I been asked has grown exponentially. Many of my students are not US citizens and have only a cursory understanding of the US system. Others are citizens, but their parents have worked or been stationed overseas their entire lives.
One day in class, we had a discussion about the Electoral College and a student asked “why don’t people living abroad get Electoral votes? There’s more of us than there are North or South Dakotans.” The correct answer to my student’s question is that people living abroad are supposed to vote in their home states, under their state’s laws, which vary widely. After explaining that however, it occurred to me that I had no idea how many US citizens lived abroad. So we paused class and did a quick deep dive, (I love moments of spontaneous learning). We learned that according to the State Department, nine million US citizens live abroad. To put than in context, that is more people than the population of any of the states that had a primary before Super Tuesday. If Americans abroad were a state, they’d be the tenth most populace state — slotting in between New Jersey and Michigan.
We also found out that although folks living abroad don’t get electoral votes, they do host their own primaries and are allocated delegates at the National Conventions.
Fast forward to today: I got a text from my wife asking “Do you want to leave work at 4pm or do your want to go to the library and vote?” Our school is a polling place for the Democrats Abroad Global Primary. As you may know, I have been following the elections back home closely but had not actually cast my ballot yet. I always try to hold on to my ballot, just in case my preferred candidate does something crazy like drop out after Super Tuesday. I am registered to vote in Washington State, but as an American living overseas, I have a choice of voting in my homestate or in the Democrats Abroad Primary where 21 delegates are up for grabs, (but not in both). So we downloaded, printed, filled out, and submitted our ballots to the Pierce County Auditor electronically this afternoon in about 10 minutes and thanked the folks from Democrats Abroad on our way out of school.
Some timely reminders:
Ballots in Washington State are due Tuesday. If you reading this back home get your ballot in — we vote by mail — there’s no excuse.
If you are live abroad and are reading this you also have until Tuesday to cast a ballot in the Global Primary.
If you have friends and family living abroad, give them a nudge and make sure they cast a ballot.
Events in the US are too dire and tumultuous for a group of citizens the size of four West Virginias or sixteen Wyomings to sit on the sidelines.