Absentee Voting From Abroad Presents Myriad of Fraud Vulnerabilities in US Elections

When it comes to election results in the United States, officials often remind that the overseas military ballots need to be counted before finalizing results, yet this reminder is usually ignored by the general population who focuses on the preliminary results. However, recent policy changes and Democratic efforts to register international voters have turned this mostly Republican-leaning, military-dominated voting bloc into an unpredictable force with the potential for fraud, which may ultimately influence the outcome of US elections.

Voting Eligibility for Non-US Citizens

When Congress passed the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) in 1986, absentee voting by non-US citizens was only permissible for military members serving overseas. However, many individuals living abroad, including those who have never lived in the US, are also eligible to vote. Children of US citizens born overseas are considered US citizens and may therefore vote in US elections. The list of states that allow voters to register and vote even if they have never lived in that state is shown below.

Change in Voting Demographics

Historically, most UOCAVA voters had a military affiliation and tended to lean Republican. However, according to data compiled by Verity Vote, a group of citizen volunteers with data research and investigation backgrounds, in the 2020 election, 63% of UOCAVA ballot returns were from non-military individuals; military members and their dependents made up just 37% of the total overseas ballot returns.

Increase in Overseas Voting During the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic led to mass repatriation of US citizens who were living overseas, and many travelers, students, and missionaries returned to the US. The Department of State (DOS) assisted in this effort by arranging flights to bring back US citizens from different parts of the world. According to a DOS video, by June 1, 2020, they had arranged 1,140 flights from 136 countries, bringing back around 101,386 Americans. Verity Vote obtained IRS records which reveal a decrease of at least 805,000 US taxpayers abroad in 2020 when compared to 2019. However, despite the decrease in the number of US citizens eligible to vote under UOCAVA, the number of UOCAVA ballots counted in the US in 2020 was a record high of 913,734, exceeding the number counted in 2016 (671,243), according to a 2020 report by the Federal Voting Assistance Program.

Potential for Fraud

The Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act, sponsored in 2009 by Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), obligates all states to accept the Federal Post Card Application as both a voter registration form and an official request for an absentee ballot. Under this law, states must accept the application even if the requester’s proof of identity or citizenship is missing. For instance, an applicant who checks the box that indicates they have never lived in the US is not required to provide a Social Security Number or a US-issued driver’s license. They can still receive an absentee ballot and vote in federal races. While filling the Federal Post Card Application, a foreign address is required, but the ballot can be delivered via email, which eliminates the need to verify the foreign address provided. Email ballots can be printed and mailed from the voter’s home computer. During a recent voter integrity presentation, Heather Honey of Verity Vote explained that an email ballot poses a risk since it eliminates the verification and confirmation that ballots have been delivered to the intended address.

The following are relevant numbers from a Verity Vote report that highlight the vulnerability of the voting system. The Federal Voting Assistance Program approximated that over 41,000 UOCAVA ballots were sent back from Canada, where fewer than 1,000 US military personnel are based. Arizona permits UOCAVA voters to return their ballots through email, fax, and online portal upload, which creates an opportunity for fraud as those ballots are printed and counted in counties. In Virginia, while the law does not allow the electronic return of any voted ballots, the state reported that 19,809 of the 25,634 non-military UOCAVA ballots were received and counted through email in 2020.

Efforts to Register More International Voters

Verity Vote reports that the only two partner organizations for the Federal Voting Assistance Program are VotefromAbroad.org and the US Vote Foundation. Vote from Abroad advises people on how to use a VPN, which can help overcome the challenge of foreign IP addresses being blocked by some jurisdictions but concurrently obscure the origin of ballot requests and submissions. Although both organizations are considered nonpartisan, Vote from Abroad states that it is a public service of Democrats Abroad, the official Democratic Party arm.