AARO - Living Overseas and U.S. Elections

ONE - VOTE

If you are a U.S. citizen living overseas, you CAN and SHOULD vote. It's a little different from voting when you live in the U.S.

• The law allows you to vote in FEDERAL elections. Of course, that includes mid-terms, because all of the House and 1/3 of the Senate seats are up for election.
• You have to send in your ballot request EVERY YEAR. Why? Because, I think, you have to keep your election board apprised of your living abroad every year. And because you never know when there might be a special election because someone resigned or died.
• There are two websites for overseas voters that I recommend:
• Overseasvotefoundation.org is a non-partisan, non-government organization.
• fvap.gov is a non-partisan, government site run by the Department of Defense.

TWO - Find out who your candidates are.

• You need to know what district you're voting address is in: https://www.usvotefoundation.org/vote/CandidateFinder.htm
• Ballotpedia.org is a good source for finding the candidates. 

THREE - Connect to your candidates!

AARO is running a "Connect to your Overseas Constituents" campaign: https://www.aaro.org/election-2018-candidate-statements-for-expat-americans  We are asking three questions pertaining to U.S. citizens living overseas to all the candidates in the general election.

• If you live in one of the states AARO is highlighting, check the responses from your state and then go to: https://www.aaro.org/advocacy/voting/729-help-connecting-to-the-candidates  to see our recommendations for contacting your candidates.
• Even if you do not live in one of these states, you can contact your candidates, just to let them know you exist and what some of your issues are as U.S. citizens in a foreign country.

 For those who are not familiar with my involvement with AARO, I am a former board member and still active volunteer. AARO is the Association of Americans Resident Overseas. www.aaro.org

A Visit to the Philadelphia Election Board

You may remember that I had some issues, as they say, with voting back in the fall (http://ellenlebelle.blogspot.com/2012/11/lots-and-lots-of-little-things.html). Since I was privileged to be going to Overseas Americans Week for AARO, I managed to start my trip in Philadelphia and had an appointment with the supervisor and legal counsel of the Philadelphia Board of Elections on Friday, Feb. 8.
The legal counsel remembered me; he's the one who had given all the answers in the former supervisor's replies to my emails.
I did not want this to be a meeting of a litany of complaints on my part; I wanted to hear what the election board had to say that might improve things all around. They were not able to tell me what percentage of registered voters were overseas voters, but they said it was a very low number, probably not even 1%. On the Overseas Vote Foundation's site, and I believe on the other online sites, when you fill out the form for your registration/ballot request, you are asked if it is for all the elections in the year or just one. I always check the box for all the elections. Also, I follow the recommendation of making my request every year, even if no federal election is scheduled, because you never know when there might be a special election (Massachusetts voters will be electing a new senator in June this year). You are supposed to be able to do it this way -- every year, for every federal election according to the UMOVA rules (And Pennsylvania has enacted UMOVA). Well, the election board doesn't like that. They prefer to receive the registration/ballot requests before each election (primary and again for the general election) no earlier than 7 to 8 weeks before the election. Anyway, that might explain why I got the primary ballot in time but had to phone in the fall to get the general election ballot.
The next problem we addressed was the addressing of the ballot I finally got. Here, I have to take OVF to task, and I bet the other sites are similar. When you are asked for your home (foreign address), it prints up on the form in US format, with the postal code after the city name. Perhaps their programmers could reprogram it so that you put in your country name first and the form would then conform to the format for entering information would correspond correctly and would print correctly. This is what many commercial business sites now do. A quick solution we came up with at the meeting was to attach self-addressed labels (with its adhesive backing intact, of course) for the board to use on its envelope when sending out the ballots. They assured me that stapling these to the form would not invalidate the form. This would put the burden of getting the address correct on the voter, who should know how to write his address.
We also talked about the fact that the Pennsylvania website for tacking your registration and/or ballot status reported incorrectly that I was not registered. It also reproted that Anne was not registered , and she didn't bother to send in the Federal Absentee Ballot based on that misinformation. It turns out that we overseas voters are not the only ones unhappy with that site. Every county in Pennsyvania has complaints about it and it doesn't matter if it's a Republican or Democrat-run county. Not only that, but it seems that many states have faulty tracking. Since tracking is mandatory for the states, they should work on improving it!
These issues also came up in discussions on the Hill during OAW, so I'm very glad I had this input. I want to thank the people I met with in Philadelphia for the meeting.

Lots and Lots of Little Things

There's no order to my thoughts today. First thing that comes to my mind is that I'm sick of the US election. I can't imagine what it must be like in the States, with all the political ads. Here, it's just in the news and special reports. But then, it's also on facebook, in the comments and shared tidbits from friends. I haven't expressed myself very much publicly. A little, but not much. I have expressed myself concerning overseas voting by encouraging everyone to request their ballots and then to send them in. All that, and when I figured my ballot was a bit late in coming I called the Philadelphia Board of Elections to inquire and then to ask they send me another one. It arrived, but the address was nearly illegible and not to international standards, so I'm surprised it did arrive. I've been corresponding by email with the assistant commissioner with my Congressman's office and the founders of a group of overseas voters that worked hard to get people registered and get their ballot requests and then their ballots in. So, I just got more frustrated when I checked the PA voters services site to check the status of my ballot (had it been received?) and was notified that I am not registered! I am so! The board of elections people had no trouble identifying me, my address, or other information and never once suggested that I wasn't actually registered! So, imagine a voter who checked the site and was informed he or she was not registered. Why send in the ballot, then? Another person on the "Pennsylvanians Abroad" group on facebook has just reported being in the same confusion and frustration as me. I'm a militant voter, so I have made the phone calls, have corresponded with the board of elections, have alerted my Congressman, but many voters might just take the website's word for it and give up.

This week, you can't have ignored Superstorm Sandy! Wow! That's getting wide coverage here, too. There's been a mention here and there about Haiti being hit hard and it's a shame that so much time is being spent on the US damage. I don't know if there's been much mention in the States of the damage elsewhere. For us, this puts a real damper on our vacation plans. I had reserved a house belonging to the mother-in-law of a friend (http://ellenlebelle.blogspot.fr/2010/10/what-wonderful-weekend-thank-you-anita.html) for two weeks in August. The kids were trying to arrange their vacations to come; B&T were coming up for a weekend; J&T were planning to come.... Well, Anita has written that we should come up with a plan B. The news she has been able to glean is that the house, miraculously, is okay. However, the island's infrastructure is so damaged that they are estimating it will take many months to restore services. In the mean time her mother-in-law may just give up and sell.

Paul and I took a week-long break. We've already been home a week! We went to Avignon to see T, a friend of Paul's from the Pierwige before my time, probably 1969. She's been living in Avignon for a long, long time and has just retired. She's a physical therapist, but her real specialty is the Feldenkrais method and she has developed techniques for dancers and musicians. We'd been to see her a couple of years ago. This time we had dinner with her twice. The second one was at her parents'. They live in the same converted mansion, downstairs. They are delightful and dinner was pleasant. They miss living in Los Angeles, though. 

T was busy on Thursday, so Paul and I went for a drive. I took a look at a map and saw that one of my facebook friends (really the friend of a friend) was nearby, so we set that as our destination. Then Paul saw the sign for Ménerbes and wanted to go there because when he was a teenager, in the mid-60s, he had spent three summers with his aunt and uncle's helping to clear the land and rebuild the hillside terrace walls just outside the village. We found the house. The hillside is covered with trees. The village is well restored and much cleaner and richer than Paul remembered it of course. There used to be just one café tabac and now there are several restaurants. We had lunch -- excellent. But everything shuts down by mid-November. There's no doctor; the pharmacy is closed, no butcher or baker. 

Goult, the village near my facebook friend's, is just across the main road from Ménerbes, on the facing hill. It's a bigger village. The streets are wider, so there is more light. There is a very nice little tour of the town you can do on your own; there are little posts with tourist information along the way. They've restored the old flour mill and there's a panel explaining the restoration and the functioning of the mill. My friend had been out when I announced the possibility of our passage and our timing was off, so next time we'll plan better.

Paul wanted to go to Apt. Based on his memory, this was where we could get some good fruits confits (candied fruit). It was the big town where his aunt used to go to market. It is still a big town. There is a candied fruit processing plant just outside the town, but the main street only had a couple of shops with the specialty. It was time to return to Avignon and dinner with T and her parents.

The next morning we went to Montpellier for an afternoon and evening with the Bs, our former neighbors in Nogent. The twin girls are big girls now, going on 5, and the boy is a big boy for 7. Their house is finished and is very big and pleasant. M and R are, as ever, wonderful. R has taken up music seriously and has performed in a local club! They both have heavy teaching schedules this semester and are very, very busy. We spent the night at the Holiday Inn in the town center and it is a beautifully restored old hotel.

Saturday, we were off to Six-Fours, to the Lebelles, there. Pierre and Paul spent quite a lot of time looking at their old family films that have been transferred to a DVD. We brought back a big box of slides that Paul is now in the process of scanning into his computer. The big job is trying to sort them out -- where, when, who...

Here are some shots from our trip:

Lots of Activity

I'ts been pretty busy these last few weeks. How on earth did I manage to do anything when I was working?

Speaking of working, I went to a job interview at a small company in Fontenay sous Bois - very near home. They are not really paying for a technical writer; it looks more tlike they want a part-time office assistant who can print out whatever is needed for bids as they come up and write new material when necessary. I suggested they use me (through an agency) to do the writing and find someone else for the lesser tasks. It was interesting, though, and I enjoyed the atmosphere of the company.

I saw Yamina - always pick up where we left off - as if it was yesterday. Well, yes I did see her a couple of months ago, but before that, it had been years. She told me about her trips to the States as supervisor of groups of French kids on linguistic trips. The organization she goes with seems to be hooked up with a weird group of host families, mostly evangelical Christians who seem bent on converting their guests. I don't know if it is giving these kids a warped vision of the United States or if I've been away so long, I'm the one with the warped vision.

I also went to a lunchtime AARO meetup at a pizzaria at Montparnasse. That was fun. Most of the 25 or so attendees were members and I already knew several from AAWE and other meetings. Just a pleasant social event.

It's amazing how many Americans are in Paris on a temporary basis. I'm used to seeing the ones like me who are married to French people and even the ones who came to work and have stayed on, but I've been meeting more of the kind that are retired and have come here to spend a year or so and others who still maintain residences in the States, but come here for several months a year. I meet them in the Ile de France walks, too. The falling dollar is an obsession for these people. A few years ago, they were really well off and now, they can barely get through the month. Even for me - when I calculated what I might draw from US funds, I wasn't thinking in terms of almost $1.50 per €1.00.

Last week, I went to a Democrats Abroad for Hillary meeting. It was a conference call with meetings in many major cities around the world and one of the head honchos for Clinton's campaign - a fund raiser. I was hoping for some help in deciding. The meeting was for Hillary supporters, but there were a few of us there who are undecided. I got invited to the Democrats Abroad for Obama meeting the next evening, but didn't go. While we were waiting for the call to begin, we were asked if we had any questions and I offered mine: Why should I, an American living abroad, want to vote for Hillary Clinton? It was deemed a good question and I got to ask it during the conference call. Unfortunately, it didn't get answered. I don't know that there is an answer. Considering all the problems in the States, why should we (some 3-7 million Americans abroad) be of any consequence? Why? Because there are so many of us, we could almost be a state! I could give an easy answer and say that we need tax reform - have our income abroad removed from the tax declaration if we are declaring and paying tax on it where it was earned. But there are other things - when the kids were growing up and I didn't have a clue as to how to pass on the "American" part of us, I could have used some help. In Paris, it is not all that difficult - just join AAWE. But there are many who do not have such help, who can't afford even what is there. Medicare extension, too, for people who paid into the US system all their lives and are now abroad. Again, it doesn't concern me, but it does affect others.

I saw Chilla again at both the AARO meetup and the Dems Abroad for Hillary meeting and yet again at the Jay Gottlieb recital at Neuilly the other evening. This time he played a full program of American composers: Copeland, Ives, Bernstein, Gershwin, Glass, Jarrett, and Adams. I find Ives a bit hard to listen to; the Copeland and Bernstein pieces were not the usual things you hear. Iwas totally hypnotized by the Glass and loved the Koln Concert (Jarrett). Jay is totally absorbed in the music as he plays; he's amazing to watch. And of course, Rita came to this recital, too.

On Mondays and Thursdays I go to an art class in Fontenay, just 10 minutes from home. This replaces the art classes I went to in Paris, before. Last week was the first time I went on a Monday and everyone was doing his or her own thing until the end, when Francine, our hostess and instructor, asked us to bring over our work for group comments. There was the portrait of a man - and I immediately recognized him - our neighbor, Bruno. (Actually, he moved away a few months ago, but still, he was our neighbor for 20 years!) Turns out I'm in class with his sister, Isabelle. And she's a damned good portraitist. Just another instance of the small world phenomenon.

So now, I've spent too long at Anne's computer and it'll be too late to call FNAC to get help getting my own computer in order. I think I screwed up some settings and can't find my wi-fi connection. I'll see if I can get it done on Thursday. Tomorrow, I'm going on a walk at the Parc Citroën. Last week, I joined the walk through the Parc de la Courneuve but did not continue to the Basilique St. Denis.