7-10 million Americans live abroad

So I just got back to my supporter housing, I have to be back at the office at 5AM, and I have DemsAbroad work to do.

I’ve spent 3 of the past 42 hours sleeping, and I’m not sure it’s worth the trouble of waking up to get another one…

I checked and rechecked walk packets and maps all night, so I’m going to do my doorhanging in…an hour and 10 minutes. Then, starting at 8:30 AM, I’ll be in charge of another staging location for canvassing, like Saturday. I’ll coordinate that until the polls close, but hopefully I’ll have some downtime while the canvassers are out doing the packs to write a real post. Doubtful, though, since each turf is painfully small, and will probably come back super quickly.

We’ll see – you also may hear from me Tuesday night once all the polls (including West Coast) are closed and we’re waiting for results. At some point I will be sleeping for a long, long time, so expect some dead air in the near future.

Now, on to DemsAbroad e-mails that unfortunately won’t send themselves.

Unbelievable.

I think I have time for a quick post now, while I’m at the office. It’s been pretty slow – I’m anxious to get back to VA for the all-night lit drop. Thankfully, I found supporter housing near the the field office, so I can work late without having to worry about missing the last train back to DC.

I am ridiculously tired. It’s not that bad when I’m out and moving around in the field, but the minute I sit down to answer e-mails or do data entry, I’m fighting a losing battle. I’ve been getting a little saucy with some of our ruder members, who e-mail Democrats Abroad to blame us because they missed their state’s registration deadline. Confusion is fine – I understand it’s a complicated process, and I’m more than happy to explain what happened and why, but ultimately it is not our responsibility to make sure you’re able to vote. It’s yours. And using caps to yell at me is completely unnecessary.

Okay, I’m done venting. In other news, we heard from two Massachusetts voters today who got their ballots from UPS this morning. Really useful, considering there’s no way those ballots can get back here in time to meet MA’s Nov. 4th deadline. Oh, did I mention the voters also got bills for $90 each for overnight shipping? Which they didn’t request, of course.

That brings me to an interesting issue. A voter from California e-mailed us about this, too. Does having to pay to mail your ballot back to the States constitute a poll tax? I think it does. For voters in countries with unreliable or slow local mail, the best way for them to get their ballots back is to use FedEx or another commercial courier. FedEx did have a program offering reduced shipping rates for ballots, but in most countries the fee was $23.50, not an insignificant amount of money. Lindsey’s said she’s heard of voters paying upwards of $100 to have their ballots back in the States in time to be counted.

In Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966), the Supreme Court ruled that poll taxes violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Technically it’s not the state charging the voter to vote. But they have to pay all the same. Are there any thoughts from the peanut gallery on this? Psst, that’s you guys.

I wish there was an elections law class I could take at Hunter, that would be amazing. Some of the most important work that goes on here is done by the Election Protection team of lawyers. It also ties in really well with Constitutional law, which I love. Especially the 14th Amendment, it’s my favorite. What, doesn’t everyone have a favorite amendment?

That’s it from me for now – I’m off to VA, will probably be back online around 2 or 3AM. Then at 5 it’s time to head out to drop off more literature reminding people to vote, to hit them as they leave for work. Polls open at 6, will probably be canvassing from 9:30AM until 6:30PM (doing the old “Knock and Drag” – knock on the door and drag the voter to the polls). Polls close at 7, at which point I’ll probably shift over to doing line management, encouraging voters to stay in line, bringing them food, blankets, etc. When the last of them have voted, it’s back to the office to call Democratic voters on the West Coast until the polls close there.

Then….we’ll see.

The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (”UOCAVA”) is the single most important piece of legislation to Democrats Abroad. It’s our leg to stand on in our constant battle with the states to count overseas absentee votes. UOCAVA is the federal law that says all overseas citizens have the right to vote in federal elections in the last state they lived in. UOCAVA standardized the registration process, so one form, the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA) is accepted by all the states as both a voter registration form and an absentee ballot request. UOCAVA also created the Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot, (FWAB) as an emergency back-up ballots that all states must accept if a voter doesn’t receive their official state ballot in time to send it back before the deadline.

Granted, there is a ton of work left to do. There is more than enough room for 51 different sets of rules and regulations about overseas absentee voting within UOCAVA, and some states try to do everything they can to get around it altogether. For example:

Alabama was refusing to accept FWABs, on the grounds that its state laws superseded federal law, and UOCAVA magically didn’t apply to them. Last time I checked, oh, I’d say around the time of Brown v. Board, federal law always trumps state law. Alabama, determined to be difficult, did not give in until we got the Department of Justice involved. I’m sure Alabama’s Republican Attorney General was thrilled to get that call.

All of a sudden, Utah decides it wasn’t going to count ballots from voters living overseas permanently. A woman from Utah called us to say that she had spoken with her county clerk, who told her that she had to sign the Residency Oath on the back of her ballot for it to count. She’s been living in Canada her whole adult life, and obviously doesn’t live at her voting residence. The clerk said if she signed the oath, she would be perjuring herself and her vote wouldn’t count. But if she didn’t sign the oath, her vote also wouldn’t count. The solution after we went to bat for her? Sign the oath – but she had to tell the clerk there was a chance she would come back to the U.S. and live at that address. Which is completely bogus, she’s married to a Canadian, and never plans to come back here permanently.

Cole County in Missouri, according to an e-mail I got from a voter, will not accept all FWABs. When Lindsey called to investigate, she spoke to the head clerk, who told her he’s never heard of UOCAVA, but if she faxes it to him, he might get around to reading it before Christmas. Livid, she tried calling the Missouri Secretary of State, only to be told that they only accept FWABs from voters in “remote locations.”

Federal law requires states to accept a FWAB from any overseas voter who applies for a ballot on time, doesn’t get it, and mails their FWAB from outside the country. It doesn’t matter if they’re trekking across the Australian outback and have no access to their mail, or if they’ve lived in the same apartment in Paris for 30 years and get their mail (well, sans state ballot) every day.

To clarify Missouri’s interpretation, though, she asks, “So you’ll count a FWAB from a voter in Zambia, but you won’t count a FWAB from a voter in London, who never got their ballot because their clerk forgot to put enough international postage on it?” What’s the response from the woman she’s talking to? “Where is Zambia?”

Eventually, it becomes clear that Missouri thinks they’ve found a loophole in UOCAVA that exempts them from the requirement of accepting all FWABs. We stick out team of Voter Protection lawyers on the case, who quickly figure out the statute in Missouri state law they’re citing as allowing them to use discretion when accepting FWABs only applies to state and local elections. So they have to count all FWAB votes for federal offices, no matter where the voter is. Sorry, Missouri. Better luck disenfranchising voters next time.

I could be using my extra hour for sleep, but no, you guys come first. Also, I’m still a little hyped up on the sugar I’ve been consuming at an alarming rate to stay functional. Note to self – go for a run. After the election.

Today was super. The field organizer I’ve been working under sent me out to manage my own canvass staging site, which basically meant she set me up with packets of turf (doors to be knocked) and sent me volunteers. The staging site was the precinct captain’s house, but she was getting ready to go out of town, so I was pretty much on my own. That’s another thing I love about this campaign – it’s so easy to be given instant responsibility, very much getting thrown in the water to sink or swim. I tend to work well in that kind of environment, with people counting on me and very little room or time for error. You just do what you have to do, and move on to the next thing.

It’s not that training volunteers on how to canvass is hard, but I’ve never done it before, and there certainly wasn’t anyone more experienced who could be spared to watch over my shoulder. It was a bit frazzling when the volunteers arrived in droves and we ran out of canvassing packets, but ultimately we got all of the packets out and back, and I didn’t hear from anyone who said they had a bad time. And luckily Mike, one of the DNC summer interns, was with me, and he was a wizard at organizing the information and numbers we had to report to HQ, so I could concentrate on giving the volunteers the information they needed.

There was some down time in the morning after the first wave, so I got to canvass a pack myself, which was great. It was the perfect day – warm at 66 degrees, bright sunshine, a little bit of a breeze, what more could I ask for? Unfortunately, I only made three voter contacts. The rest of my packet wasn’t home, probably enjoying the amazing weather themselves. Being outside instead of being cooped up at the DNC or in the VA field office was so refreshing. Have I mentioned how much I love canvassing?

And the best part is, I get to do it again tomorrow! I’ll be working with one of field organizers who apparently got swamped today at a different staging location. Hopefully I’ll be able to walk another packet or two in between trainings. At some point tomorrow, I’ll try to interrupt your regularly scheduled gushing about field work with a post about good old Dems Abroad, but we’ll see if that actually happens

In other news, I bought my bus ticket home for Thanksgiving today, before they all sell out. I can’t believe how close this is to being over.

Guys, I am thriving.

I love field work. It’s a thousand times better than sitting at a desk all day, answering e-mails from CRAZY expats. (Like one of the ones I got today, from a woman who wants to donate a PUPPY to the Obama family. A golden retriever, to be precise. She breeds them. I’m telling you – it’s impossible to make this stuff up.)

Anyway – there’s so much excitement at the field office, it’s like the air itself is vibrating. There’s a constant feeling of tension, but the good kind. Like when you have a crush on someone you see just often enough to convince you that every time you turn a corner, they might be there. It’s exhilarating.

The schedule is my kind of schedule, at least during the week. Since canvassing (going door to door) and phone banking have the highest rate of contact from 5-9pm, there’s no reason to be at the office at 9AM. Both days the head field organizer told me she didn’t need me until 11:30, and things don’t really start to get busy until around 3 or so. Of course, after phone banking and canvassing are done, all the data has to be entered, and everything has to be set up for the next day. Which means late nights, perfect for the night owl in me.

I can’t wait for Sunday and Monday. Sunday night we’re doing door hanging (hanging flyers on doors reminding people to vote) starting at 10PM, into the wee hours of Monday. Monday night, we’re going basically all night. I’m so excited, you guys have no idea. Have I mentioned I’m at my best when I’m sufficiently sleep-deprived? I’m well on my way – I’m getting two hours tonight before I wake up for Saturday morning canvassing.

What else? Oh, being around kids my own age again is great. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of fun with Lindsey and the other DNC staff, but since my group of the summer interns went home, it’s been a little lonely. I’m sure the fall interns are nice, but I never really got to know any of them. Working such long hours in such close proximity to other college(ish) aged kids is a really nice change, and so far it’s been a blast. There’s such a sense of camaraderie, especially in these final days.

Also (I had to save the best for last) they FEED us. Ali (who’s been on the campaign since literally the beginning) says that’s unique to northern VA, but as far as I can see, we have the best volunteers donating amazing food, 24/7. Of course, there’s all the junk food a girl could want (I personally loved the cake shaped like Obama’s head that came in today, complete with matching cupcakes), but there’s also fresh fruit, muffins, last night there was jambalaya and chicken, tonight there was turkey casserole and some kind of stew…the list goes on.

I tell ya, this is the life. Next time around, I really want to work on a campaign, on the ground. I love talking to voters, meeting real people, telling people why I support Obama, convincing them if they need convincing, recruiting volunteers…everything. I mean, I’m sure I’m being idealistic, and a lot of the excitement just comes from the fact that it’s this candidate, this election, this campaign – but still, I think it’s an experience I’d enjoy a lot, whether it’s working for Obama’s reelection, or Steve Israel’s.

This is just a quick update because it’s late, and, well, I’m exhausted. I went to see The Bubble at UMD’s Hillel tonight. It was an intense movie. As Lila said, “Israelis don’t believe in happy endings.” I have to agree. I liked it better than the other Eytan Fox movies I’ve seen, Walk on Water and Yossi and Jagger. I only vaguely remember Walk on Water, and while Yossi and Jagger is an absolutely incredible movie, I thought The Bubble did a better job telling a story and showing the characters grow – even more impressive because there were four main characters to develop, instead of basically only two in Yv’J.

Anyway, here is the plan for the next few days. There are still a couple of posts I want to make about Dems Abroad voting stuff, so hopefully I can fit them in while I also blog about my experiences in the field. I’m going out to Fairfax, VA tomorrow, to start knocking on doors and making phone calls until Sunday. Lindsey (who’s currently in North Carolina) wants us to be in the office on Monday, to work on Turkey stuff, and then we’re both out in VA on election day. Oh, that’s right – I think I mentioned Turkey in one of my posts that got deleted. So for those of you that don’t know, Democrats Abroad is having a global meeting in Turkey after the election, and I get to go! I’m so excited, I don’t know what to do with myself. But let’s not get sidetracked, here. We still have an election to win.

I’ll be commuting out to VA and coming home every night, so expect my reports from the field late each evening from now through Sunday. Then, like I said, it’s back in the office Monday, out in VA again Tuesday. Don’t know how much blogging I’ll get to do Tuesday/Wednesday. For some reason, I think it might be a little hectic. But I’ll catch you guys up on state-side election stories (as opposed to Dems Abroad shenanigans) later in the week and over the weekend.

We leave for Turkey on the 11th, and I’m taking my computer to be able to post the full scoop on the meeting and any adventures I have there. Note to self: Brush up on Turkish. Of course, if there’s no internet access, I’ll write the posts, but I’ll have to wait until I come back on the 17th to put them online.

Then I hold down the fort from the 17th – 26th, while Lindsey stays in Turkey on a vacation with her husband. And then it’s Thanksgiving, I’m back in New York for good, and my life goes back to being boring and non-blog-worthy. It’s crazy how time flies.

Virginia has issue with some overseas ballots Well…duh.

I realized while writing this post that I need to start with a glossary:

FWAB: Federal Write In Absentee Ballot. The FWAB is essentially an emergency ballot. It’s used when overseas voters do not receive their official state absentee ballots in time to get their ballots returned to the States. More information about the FWAB is available on our Voting Action Center at “What is the FWAB?” (Written by yours truly, after getting so many questions about the FWAB I thought my inbox would explode)

FPCA: The Federal Post Card Application. It’s a special form overseas voters can use to register to vote and request their ballot, all in one shot.

The CNN article above outlines just one of the problems overseas absentee voters face in Virginia. In most, if not all states, if you haven’t requested an official state absentee ballot, you can’t send in the FWAB – it won’t count. In Virginia, though, if you haven’t sent in your FPCA to request your ballot, you can also use the FWAB as an application to request your absentee ballot. However, if you’re using your FWAB as your ballot and as your application for an absentee ballot, your witness needs to provide their address. But does either the FWAB itself or the instructions say that Virginia requires the witness’s address?

Of course not. (Thankfully, Demcorats Abroad is on the ball. Just check out Virginia in “State Specific Updates.”)

But oh, it gets better. The Fairfax County Registrar is not counting ballots that arrive without the witness’s address. The Arlington County Registrar hasn’t received any ballots that are missing the address, but if she did, she would count them. 

Is that not the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard? Well, okay, Texas still takes the cake for me, but this is close.

Virginia, by the way, is also the only state that explicitly disenfranchises U.S. citizens born abroad to parents from Virginia. Right in the VA state constitution, it says if you’ve never lived in Virginia, you can’t vote there. So children born overseas, who have never lived in the U.S. (and therefore obviously never lived in Virginia), but who are American citizens, mind you – can’t vote if their parents are from VA. And of course, no other state will take them, why would they? Right to vote? Bah humbug!

Last night I went to “Sick and Broke: A Conversation About Health Care with Elizabeth Edwards” at GW hosted by Campus Progress. Before I go into it, I just want to say how much I love Campus Progress – during the summer, they have their interns compete in a “Free-Food-a-Thon,” and the intern who scores the most (and best) free food wins. It’s inspiring, I tell you. I modeled my strategy in Denver (where I managed to eat for free almost every day of the convention) off of the wisdom gleaned from their blogs. They also keep a daily calendar of free events going on in DC, and offer pretty great speakers and trainings. Amazing. But I digress.

The talk was really interesting – healthcare is not really my forte, so it was nice to get an introduction to the basic problems facing the system. Let’s face it – my mom works for the federal government, we’ve always had healthcare, it’s always covered what we needed, and what it didn’t cover, we could afford to pay for ourselves. I’d never given it more thought than having a vague impression that the healthcare system sucks. Why did I think that? Because everyone else said it.

But Elizabeth Edwards and Ezra Klein, the moderator, touched on everything from the candidates’ healthcare policies to the differences between the employer market for health insurance and the individual market, to potential ways to make healthcare less expensive. It all boiled down to one question asked by an audience member:

Is health insurance

A) a commodity people should be able to afford

B) a responsibility of the individual to take care of

or

C) a right?

Edwards was C, all the way. She called providing affordable healthcare our “moral obligation.” I don’t know if I’d go that far. (Gosh, how Republican of me. Shhhh.) But when the insured are paying an average of $900 extra a year to relieve costs incurred from treating the uninsured, it does seem like everyone benefits when more people are insured. And if people aren’t able to provide for their own, maybe the government should step in, within reason. (Phew, that’s more like it.)

She also strongly supported reforming comprehensive healthcare policies to include more preventative care, early intervention treatments, and diagnostic tests. Which makes sense. Even though it might be more expensive the first few years to pay for yearly mammograms for younger women who would ordinarily put off the test instead of paying for it themselves, in the long run, it could save a lot of money in cancer treatments. But then again, who decides when a test or treatment is overkill? Patient? Doctor? Insurance company? Government?

It’s also interesting how the healthcare issue affects other national problems. Apparently, half of foreclosures are related to homeowners with healthcare-related economic problems – not a bad subprime mortgage. It’s also hard to assign blame. Take obesity in poor communities. Obesity is expensive – it leads to diabetes, heart disease, stroke, just to name a few costly conditions. It’s easy to say people are obese because they eat unhealthy food. But if they’re on foodstamps, it’s hard to buy expensive, healthy food. Plus, supermarkets in poor communities aren’t exactly known for their stellar selection of fruits and veggies. Which have to be shipped, refrigerated, and go bad rather quickly. Not very cost effective.

I think the highlight, though, was when one question mentioned “socialized healthcare,” and the moderator, who was reading the question, said, “Oh look, John McCain is in the room. He’s in the back, so you can’t see him because he’s so short.” Which was hilarious in itself, of course – but what was even better was when a woman in front of me turned around to look. Really? Really?

It’s unfortunate. I get way too attached to blogging. Oh, it’s all right at first – I’m excited that I’ll have a record, a way to bring everything back once an experience is over. It’s nice to think I’m entertaining an audience (however small), and I try to do my best to keep things interesting.

Then, I start narrating my life in my head. It took me weeks, if not months, to break the habit when I stopped updating my old livejournal, and within days of starting this blog, I was at it again. I write, and rewrite, posts in my head – posts that by the time I actually get around to typing up, I’ve lost all interest in. And it’s kind of annoying, keeping up a running monologue in my own mind as I’m trying to live my life. Have you ever gotten sick of the sound of your own thoughts?

I start to feel supremely guilty if I don’t update as much as I should. Which, let’s face it, is all the time. And especially with this blog, I feel so much pressure to keep the posts short, informative, and entertaining all at once. In other words, no 3,500 word emotional avalanches about the minutiae of my life. Which I’m more than capable of producing, trust me. Or just do some googling, if you don’t want to take my word for it.

The self-censorship becomes draining in itself – I haven’t expressed my thoughts in this format in over two years. And it really is rather cathartic. So once I start writing about one part of my life (work, in this case), I start wanting to post about everything I’m feeling. It’s hard to stem the flow. But then again, is there anything else I’ve had more practice with?

I know, I know, there are no rules, and I’m free to make this space whatever I want. I’m not even getting a grade. But the perfectionist in me wants this blog to be, well, perfect. Oh well, I’m just indulging my angsty side. Probably because I lost two posts from earlier this week in the server crash. See what I mean? I’m way too attached – it’s not like they were earth-shattering, soul-baring, deeply insightful posts, or anything.

Perhaps I’ll change the background, though, to make it a little less formal around here. And who knows, I may even give posting the personal stuff a try.

Edited to add: Unfortunately, I don’t like any of the other backgrounds as much, mostly because I think this layout has the widest text box, and I think it makes the posts look shorter. I’m a fan of minimizing scrolling. I do really like Ocadia, though. Thoughts?

I’m home this weekend for my grandma’s birthday. My original plan was to be here this weekend because I was going to spend Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in DC, but I uncharacteristically succumbed to fit of homesickness the weekend before Rosh Hashanah, and booked a last-minute flight to come home for the holiday. (If I had been keeping up this blog around then, I would have posted about the challenge of trying to balance work and observance, but alas, no such luck.)

Anyway, there are a lot of things I like about being home. The everyday antics of my crazy family, the gentle (and not-so-gentle) teasing, my room (which has yet to be converted into a study, gym, or my brother’s second bedroom, as threatened when I moved out), and clean bathrooms. However, one thing trumps all of the niceties mentioned above.

The Magic Fridge.

Don’t scoff. And don’t get me wrong – the laundry fairy is a godsend, and so is the gas fairy, who fills up the tank whenever I leave the car in the driveway with the needle dangerously close to “E.” But the magic fridge, man. I have a hard time expressing its awesome power. Cold-cuts? Sure! All the ingredients for a salad? You bet! Milk? Of course it’s not sour! And the holy grail of them all – leftovers.

I admit, I never appreciated leftovers before I moved out. I was even known to complain loudly about having to eat leftovers of the same meal too many days in a row. (What can I say? Dad likes to cook in large quantities.) But now that I’m in charge of feeding myself, there is nothing better than coming home, opening the magic fridge, and being able to choose from several entreés, side dishes, and desserts. (Although the desserts usually come from the magic freezer, the magic fridge’s close cousin.)

Best of all, it’s all free. No lines, don’t have to leave a tip, and so much healthier than the usual crap I eat. Usually there’s someone around so I’m not eating alone. And when I’m done, I just put the dishes in the magic dishwasher, which, of course, starts itself and puts the dishes back in the cabinets, so they’re clean the next time I need them.