There is quite a bit more at stake here than the blocking of a US government site set up to help people overseas register to vote. Federal law now mandates overseas voting rights for the millions of American living permanently overseas. See: http://www.fvap.gov/laws/uocavalaw.html
>>(5) "overseas voter" means --
(A) an absent uniformed services voter who, by reason of active duty or service is absent from the United States on the date of the election involved;
(B) a person who resides outside the United States and is qualified to vote in the last place in which the person was domiciled before leaving the United States; or
(C) a person who resides outside the United States and (but for such residence) would be qualified to vote in the last place in which the person was domiciled before leaving the United States.>>end of quote of the law; take special note of (C)
The law also charges the Dept of Defense to run voting for American citizens who fall under this status of 'overseas voter'. This is a confusing issue because most Americans apparently think that absentee voting doesn't include that many people, is for people overseas, and is mostly people in the military. First, there are huge numbers of absentee ballots cast in America because people have multiple residences. Look at how the Republicans use absentee ballots in California, Texas and Florida to swell their votes. These people aren't overseas. They simply have places in more than one state. Second, more potential overseas voters are not in the military, but the US government won't even count them, let alone give them an easy way to vote (estimate are 2-6 million Americans living permanently abroad).
There should be a clear distinction between absentee and overseas voting rights. Some people overseas really are just absent voters, with every intention of going back to their home in the US. However, millions aren't. They aren't absent from a place back in the US and really shouldn't be using absentee voting procedures to vote. Why? One reason is simply the absentee voting procedures vary from state to state and are also at the whim of local election officials. Voting registration in the US is unnecessarily complicated and keeps people from voting, so why should we expect anything different for overseas voters? Well, none of the local politial and government complications--and the two-party system's stranglehold over this 'system--should apply to overseas Americans who have severed ties with local and state governments back in the US in order to live overseas. They have given up the right to vote in local elections, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't have a vote in federa
l elections.
The current situation guarantees that only a small percentage of overseas Americans will vote, and if they do, they'll be stuck with overly complicated absentee ballot procedures in order to do so. Is the two party system afraid of what 2-6 million Americans living overseas think? You better believe it. On the other hand, the two-party system apparently thinks its o.k. if some voters, for example moving between Florida and Connecticut, get to vote twice in presidential elections. Once as present voters and the second time by mail-in absentee ballots. Take a look at Florida in the last presidential election if you don't believe me. The media made everyone think it was a matter of a few thousand military people denied their right to vote while hundreds of thousands of Republicans out of state mailed in their votes. What procedure ever checked to make sure that these were legimiate absentee ballots and the people had only voted once? NONE.
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