US Elections: The Ex-Pat vote

As we creep nearer to Election Day things are really starting to heat up.

Electoral Vote . Com is currently predicting an absolute Dead Heat between Kerry and Bush. According to the latest state-by-state polls Kerry and Bush are exactly tied with 264 Electoral Votes apiece. How is that possible you ask? Well, statistically they are exactly tied in Minnesota… and the rest pans out to exactly the same number of EVs! Incredible!

So what might break this deadlock? Well, the surest way of getting a solid “result” from this election is to make sure every American citizen can and does vote.

Registration across the US has, apparently, been incredible. Far beyond any year in recent history. What’s even more interesting, though, is the Ex-Patriot vote… that is, American Citizens living outside the US are also registering in record numbers. No matter what the result, this can only be good news for democracy and for politics in the US which has, for so long, degraded into bitter partison bickering between the two sides. More voters means a wider range of views, which means at least the possibility of a more moderate, less dividing political scene in the future.

I tell you this because my Step-Father told me yesterday that he voted in a US Election for the very first time this year. He was born in San Fransisco and never officially renounced his US Citizenship… so he can register online and they sent him his ballot. This is the first year he’s ever felt compelled to vote, like he said, he doesn’t “feel” like an American citizen because he has lived in Canada for his adult life, but this election has been so… engaging, and he has spent so much time thinking about it and its’ consequences, that he felt he should cast his vote so that he can say he did his part.

If he is voting for the first time in 30 years… think of how many others must be around the world.

There has truly never been an election quite like this one!

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