Voter registration abroad surges

LONDON -- Americans who live abroad are expected to vote in unprecedented numbers in the US presidential election, according to party and government officials involved in registration for absentee ballots around the world.

There are no reliable statistics on how many of the 3.5 million to 7 million Americans living overseas have registered to vote. But informed estimates in Europe and elsewhere suggest that up to three times as many voters are registering for this election as in previous years.

Hundreds of thousands of students, executives, bankers, itinerant high-tech and medical professionals, military personnel, and countless others are flocking to American embassies and military bases this week to pick up federal write-in ballots.

Others are mailing off absentee ballots, which have been arriving in fat white packets in the mail from home-state election commissions in the last few weeks.

The surging number of Americans abroad registering to vote demonstrates the high stakes of the election pitting President Bush against Democratic challenger John F. Kerry and the intense global interest.

Many of the American voters interviewed on the streets of London, Berlin, Prague, Tel Aviv, Johannesburg, and elsewhere said they were motivated to vote this year more than in any other election in recent memory because of a profoundly negative view of the United States expressed by friends, fellow students, work colleagues, and neighbors in the countries where they live.

Benjamin Yee, 20, a student at the University of Michigan who is in London for a junior year abroad at the London School of Economics, said: "I made sure to register because this is a really important election. It's a chance to tell the world that we're not a rogue nation of cowboys.

"You can't go anywhere without someone commenting about how mad they are at America under Bush," said Yee, a Kerry supporter who is from New York but registered in Michigan "because it is a swing state."

Cynthia Rousso, 41, a mother of two and a psychotherapist from Vermont who lives in London, mailed her ballot with an X marked for Kerry two weeks ago.

"As an American abroad, you really feel the anti-Americanism. . . . It was easier to live abroad in the past and say, eh, whatever. But now you are accosted all the time. You are carrying the flag in some way. . . . And I don't like that the American flag means George Bush," she said, adding, "I want to change that."

Bush supporter Jonathan Hamlin, 19, on a year abroad from Pepperdine University in California, said he wants to see the United States "stay the course" in Iraq. He said he is not swayed by the intense and, in his view, sometimes hysterical criticism of Bush in Europe.

"I think this is a very important election so I made sure I was registered to vote before I left for here in September," Hamlin said. "I like Bush and I think he is trying to do the right things. Just because it is difficult in places like Iraq, it doesn't mean we should give up."

Many Americans abroad see their votes as pivotal -- as were the votes of Americans abroad in the 2000 election.

US Army Second Lieutenant Keith Benedict, 23, a Rhodes scholar studying at Oxford University, said he expects to fax his vote.

"My one hope is that out of all the anger and frustration right now comes high voter turnout," he said. "To have that freedom to send it in at the last moment is a really nice thing for swing voters."

Because of the mixture of students, workers, soldiers, and long-term travelers, it is impossible to determine how many Americans reside abroad.

Conservative estimates place the figure at 3.5 million, while political activists busy registering American voters abroad believe it is closer to 7 million.

Approximately half a million of these Americans are members of the military.

In London last week, Americans entered the heavily guarded US Embassy in Grosvenor Square in a steady stream to pick up federal write-in ballots.

Thus far, the embassy has given out approximately 11,000 applications for state ballots.

According to a State Department spokesman in Washington who declined to be identified, "People who haven't voted in 10, 20, 30, 40 years are registering to vote. . . . The 2000 presidential election made it clear to all Americans that their vote was important."

Various political organizations register overseas voters. Democrats Abroad, which conducts nonpartisan voter registration, has registered 200,000 overseas Americans for this election, 25,000 of them in Britain.

While Democrats Abroad does not have figures for voter registration in the 2000 election, spokeswoman Sharon Manitta said, "we know it's a lot more" this time.

Membership in Democrats Abroad, which has committees in 73 countries, has doubled since the 2000 election, she said. Among the organization's newest members is its information group in Iraq, "Donkeys in the Desert."

Joan Hills, the global cochairman of Republicans Abroad, said that while the GOP group has no definite figures on voter registration, many of their chapters are having difficulty keeping pace with demand. "Canada is swamped. The UK hasn't been able to keep up," she said.

According to the Pentagon, 37 percent of eligible civilian voters living abroad voted in the 2000 election, while 69 percent of the overseas military voted in 2000. The voter turnout this year, Pentagon officials estimate, will be significantly higher.

"There is heightened interest" in this election, said a Pentagon official, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Richard, in a telephone interview, adding that the Pentagon is seeing a large number of hits on its website that posts the federal write-in ballot. The Pentagon oversees voting for Americans abroad and for all members of the uniformed services and their families.

Overseas voters have navigated an often unwieldy process. Traditionally, they are expected to register with their state and apply for an absentee ballot. Yet at least eight swing states failed to send out absentee ballots by Sept. 19, the cutoff for ensuring that voters abroad would have sufficient time to return their ballots. Some states require the ballots to be received by Nov. 2; other states require the ballots to be postmarked by election day.

In response, the Pentagon last week posted a federal write-in ballot on its website, www.fvap.gov, for overseas voters whose absentee ballots fail to arrive in time. US embassies and consulates also provide federal ballots. Many states are allowing voters to fax their ballots on or before Nov. 2.

Creag Hayes, chairman of Democrats Abroad in the Czech Republic, estimates that the organization has helped approximately 800 US citizens to vote.

Working with a team of about 25 volunteers, Hayes has organized weekly voter registration tables throughout the year at cafes, bars, and restaurants frequented by Americans, and he described the interest in this year's election as unprecedented.

"It seems almost unfathomable to Europeans that Bush can even be a candidate again after doing almost everything wrong," said John Caulkins, a native of Denver who lives in Prague.

In Cape Town, four times as many American citizens as expected gathered Tuesday for a voting event. Cape Town consulate spokesman Louis Mazel told Reuters that "I have seen greater interest in this election than any other in my 20 years in the foreign service."

According to Israel's Haaretz newspaper, an estimated 30,000 Americans living in Israel had requested absentee ballots by Oct. 1.

"In the 2000 election, the 6,000 Florida residents living in Israel could easily have changed the result of the election," Sheldon Schorer of Democrats Abroad in Israel told Haaretz.

"This message brought home to Americans at home and abroad how important the overseas vote can be."

Globe correspondents Aliza Marcus in Berlin and Brian Whitmore in Prague contributed to this report.