How much must you reside in the US before you can cast your ballot around? You might be surprised to learn that the truth always exists. People who were born in other countries to parents who were born here are also regarded as U.S. citizens and perhaps cast ballot in U.S. elections even if they have never visited or want to.
These so-called “never resided” citizens are encouraged to vote absentee in all national elections in the following states: Alaska, Arizona California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia.  ,  ,  ,
The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act ( UOCAVA ), passed by Congress in 1986, allows absentee voting by members of the U. S. military and Merchant Marine, their family members, and U. S. citizens residing outside the United States.
The concept has been around for years, but in recent years, UOCAVA election has displayed some oddities.
Even If the House Is Home to Another Registered Voters
How do never-resided citizens get a vote without possessing a U. S. target?
The next target their parents lived at is advised by never-resided voters to ask their relatives or look up old information. The guidelines make it clear that only the address used to send election fax is used to identify your voting jurisdiction.
” Your U. S. voting residence address is used to determine where you are eligible to vote”, the Federal Voting Assistance Program ( FVAP ) 2024-2025 Voting Assistance Guide advises. No election materials will be delivered to this target, according to your vote business.
It goes on to say that even if someone else lives there right now, or the apartment was torn down, that’s okay because election offices just use your voting house target to determine your eligibility and the ballot you should deliver.
UOCAVA citizens must be registered to vote at an address in the US, according to a point plate from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Even if the voting is a resident of another listed voter’s home, they may not have previously resided there for a while, but they may still be able to cast a ballot there. Election officials can be guided by the notion plate. ” Often, current residents perhaps receive election email for a UOCAVA voting who no longer life at that address. Even if they generally receive mail from abroad, election officials may explain to the current resident that a defense or foreign voter is eligible to apply their previous real residence for voter registration purposes.
In 2009, Congress passed the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment ( MOVE ) Act, sponsored by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N. Y. The Federal Post Card Application must be accepted as both a voter registration form and an official demand for an absent vote in all states.
Amateur voters can send email ballot requests via the card. That means no stamp. You can also ask somewhere for your UOCAVA vote. It is theoretically possible to stay in Anytown, U. S. A., and ask that a UOCAVA vote be emailed to you, while claiming you are in another nation. Additionally, some voters in 31 states can electronically cast their ballots in their states.
The Federalist inquired about the verification of a voter’s location and citizenship when they cast an email. Is there a process for conducting an independent investigation of each ballot, or is it part of the honor system?
According to Joshua Wick, a Department of Defense spokesman,” We would refer you to the respective states for details on how they handle verification processes.” The Federalist then inquired as to whether FVAP provided any state guidance. The following day, FVAP Director Scott Wiedmann responded via email.
According to Wiedmann,” FVAP coordinates with states to ensure that the voter’s information on the Federal Post Card Application Form and the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot will be sufficient to process the form and determine whether the voter meets the residency requirements for that jurisdiction,” Wiedmann told The Federalist. The voter affirmation that all the information provided is accurate and is protected by the perjury law also includes this. The ultimate arbitrator is a voter who meets the state’s residency requirements.
The Federalist asked election officials in Arizona, Michigan, New Jersey, and Rhode Island — all states that allow never-resided citizens to vote — the same question and did not receive a response.
According to federal documents, “unlike in 2018 and 2016, email was the most common mode of UOCAVA , ballot receipt in 2020”, but many voters still mailed their ballots in.
Fuzzy Math
Voter turnout for UOCAVA in 2020 increased significantly over previous years. That is despite the fact that during the 2020 Covid pandemic, the United States advised Americans abroad — business people, study-abroad students, missionaries, and holiday travelers — to return home.
Additionally, the Department of State mandated that many employees go home and contracted airplanes to transport them there. As of June 1, 2020, the department had arranged to bring home 101, 386 Americans on 1, 140 flights from 136 countries. Across the globe, streets were empty as people retreated from the pandemic.
The number of UOCAVA ballots counted in the 2020 election was an astronomical 913, 734 despite an unprecedented number of Americans returning to the states where they could cast their own ballots.
That is a 36 percent jump in UOCAVA participation compared to 2016, when 671, 243 UOCAVA ballots were counted.
How many U. S. citizens are abroad? We ca n’t say for sure. The Federal Voting Assistance Program ( FVAP ), an annual report to Congress released by the federal government to encourage more UOCAVA voting, can only estimate that number, and it does in the Overseas Citizen Population Analysis ( OCPA ), an annual report to Congress that the Federal Government can only determine.
The 2020 OCPA report, published in September 2021, estimates there were 4, 543, 214 U. S. citizens living overseas in 2016. But the 207-page report did n’t measure the number of U. S. citizens living abroad in 2020. The 2020 report states on page 3 that” the most recent population estimates are the ones reported in the 2018 OCPA.” There are no new estimates in the 2020 OCPA because there was not enough data at the time this report was written to make new estimates.
The 2020 OCPA report lists a 2018 total overseas population of 4, 779, 929, and incredibly, uses that estimate for 2020, despite droves of Americans returning home. But even if that 2018 number they used for 2020 is accurate, it is 236, 715 more people ( a 5 percent increase ) than in 2016, at a time when common sense tells us there were fewer U. S. citizens abroad. In 2022, the FVPA estimated that there were 4.4 million U. S. citizens abroad, a decrease of 8 percent compared to 2018/2020.
Another unfathomable anomaly of the 2020 election is the 36 percent increase in UOCAVA voters.
For more election news and updates, visit , electionbriefing.com.
Beth Brelje covers The Federalist’s elections coverage. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.