We are the 51st state -- the State of Flux, I used to call it. We are the four million Americans who are living, working, studying or retiring overseas. In sheer numbers, we would be the 24th largest state in the Union. But we are the Forgotten People, the Lost Tribe, the Missing Link.
But not forgotten by the IRS! We are required to file income tax returns every year, whether our absence is short or long or permanent; whether we have chosen it freely or have been obliged to move for our job.
Incredibly, America is the only industrialized nation that continues to extort taxes from its absentee citizens! And, at the same time, suspend their Medicare coverage.
Furthermore, just try, as an absentee taxpayer, to procure an absentee ballot! While I was still registered in New York City, my request was either ignored or someone's else's ballot would be mailed to me by mistake. (Steve Rosenberg on East 86th Street -- who are you? Did you get my ballot?)
Now I'm registered in Florida, but my request for a ballot in 2004 was unanswered. When I finally got a ballot from the American consulate in Paris, and mailed it in, Broward County flatly disqualified it.
When I went to vote in Florida's unrecognized Democratic primary three weeks ago, I was armed with my Florida driving license and my Voter's Registration card -- but they couldn't find me on the computer! (This, after owning property here and paying property taxes for 12 years!) So they gave me a "provisional" ballot and said they'd try to work it out.
Democrats Abroad has been actively trying to remedy these anomolies -- in other words, to give us back our vote, our voice. Around the globe this past month, they set up polling stations in such unlikely places as an Irish pub, a Parisian cafe, hotels in Amsterdam and Costa Rica, and a Starbucks in Thailand! Votes could also be cast online. The result was gratifying: 25,000 Americans abroad cast a ballot. Overwhelmingly, 65% of the votes cast went to Barack Obama; 32% went to Hillary Clinton.
Next month, at a meeting in Brussels, Democrats Abroad will begin choosing their delegates to the National Convention. One person has already been designated a superdelegate.
Republicans Abroad are lagging behind; don't ask me why. They organized no polls, and will have no delegates to the Convention. Do they feel cocksure of winning, or do they feel already defeated?
Americans abroad, whatever their political leaning, have always been regarded with suspicion and distrust by mainland Americans: we are renegades, deserters, traitors! The fact is, we have more awareness and concern for what is happening "back home" than many people living there. We may have lost track of the NFL and the World Series, but we have a broader perspective of what is happening on the rest of the planet. We are often called upon to explain America, so we must try to understand it ourselves. Sometimes we defend it; sometimes we criticize it. Unofficially, we are representatives and ambassadors of our country.
Many of our children have grown up overseas, and speak several languages. I like to think that they are our future leaders -- in business, in science, in education, in the arts, and in government. And that may be why so many of us support Obama -- he, too, has been an expatriate. He has been exposed to different places and different cultures, and like us, he must envision how great America can be, and grieve when it loses its way, and try somehow to make it great again.