American Views Abroad

 
As a follow-up to Fred's quest in getting his ballot and voting on time, today's LATimes gives the bigger picture in Americans Abroad Are Itching to Get Their Hands on Ballots www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-expats20oct20.story. It reports on how hundreds of thousands who live abroad have demanded ballots stirred by a partisan sense of urgency unsurpassed in previous years. Though there is little surveying of overseas Americans' voting intentions, in August, a Zogby poll found support for Kerry over Bush 58 - 35%. According to Americans Overseas for Kerry, Florida counts 306,000 overseas voters. Pennsylvania has 252,000 listed. In Michigan the number is 192,000 and in Washington there are 198,000. Ohio counts 162,000.

New York City sent out rather easy to fill out paper ballots to my household last week. We are considered special federal voters and can only vote for President, Vice President, Senator and Congressman. In the end we simply had to fill in four ovals completely and send it all off.

The German media reported on early voting in Florida and Texas yesterday. It showed how people had to wait in long lines, how some paper ballots were incomplete and how some voting machines were not functioning properly.

- posted by Gloria @ 1:16 PM