The 1.6M voters who could determine the US election don’t currently reside in the country
The U.S. election might hinge on voters currently residing tens of thousands of miles away, according to new estimates from the Democratic National Party – prompting a flurry of new efforts to mobilize voters abroad and, they hope, swing the election in Vice President Kamala Harris' favor.
According to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), an estimated 1.6 million U.S. voters living overseas are currently eligible to vote in one of seven swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin. The states, which carry a combined total of 93 Electoral College votes, are considered to be crucial in deciding the next president in an increasingly tight race.
Now, with Harris and former President Donald Trump locked in a virtual dead heat just two weeks before Election Day, this bloc could carry more influence than ever.
Democrats, for their part, are wasting little time in seizing upon what they see as a crucial demographic of U.S. voters overseas.
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Earlier this year, the DNC announced a $300,000 investment in the group "Democrats Abroad," aimed at helping mobilize U.S. voters overseas.
The investment is a first-of-its-kind donation from the DNC during a presidential campaign cycle, a spokesperson told Fox News.
It seeks to ramp up voter registration efforts by U.S. voters overseas, educate residents about registration and mail-in voting operations, and widely mobilize the population. They have also taken out ads on social media.
Voters living overseas do face additional challenges in casting their votes, which must be submitted – often by mail – to the state in which they are registered.
U.S. voters abroad do historically vote at a much lower rate in national elections when compared to their counterparts on U.S. soil.
Additionally, 47% of military voters living abroad participated in the 2020 election but just 8% of non-military voters cast their ballots from overseas – a statistic Democrats are hoping to change.
In an email to Fox News, a spokesperson for the DNC noted that President Biden's narrow 44,000-vote advantage in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin helped carry him to victory in 2020.
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Abroad voters had a notable difference in at least two of those states – Georgia and Arizona – and also played a key role two years later in the outcome of the close 2022 midterm races.
Now, as the race tightens even further in its final weeks, Democrats see this bloc as potentially offering Harris a winning edge.
"This election will be won on the margins, and every single vote counts," DNC Deputy Communications Director Abhi Rahman told Fox News in a statement.
The push comes as Republicans in at least three swing states have sought to crack down on overseas voting in the final sprint to Election Day. The Republican National Party and state-level groups in Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina have filed lawsuits this month seeking additional restrictions on a vetting and verification process they argue is devoid of proper safeguards.
Though federal law defers to individual states to establish their own election rules, the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act tasks the secretary of Defense with implementing the registration and voting for U.S. service members and government employees living abroad.
As of this writing, two judges in Michigan and North Carolina rejected the lawsuits, which they described as devoid of evidence and said risk disenfranchising voters.
Democrats, for their part, have criticized the legal push as a last-minute effort by Republicans to restrict voter turnout from a demographic that has until recently been a fairly reliable bedrock of GOP support.
"We’re going to win this election by engaging every eligible voter, no matter where they live," Rahman told Fox News, adding that their investment "shows our commitment to leaving no stone left unturned."