By Clint Harris

On January 15th voter assistants for Vote From Abroad (VFA) held a kick-off event helping US Citizens register to vote and/or request their ballots for the upcoming 2024 primary and general elections in the US. Nine citizens requested their ballot in person at the event, while many others are using the VoteFromAbroad.org online system at home or with friends.

Vote From Abroad is a non-partisan online system facilitating the use of the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA). The FPCA is prescribed by Federal law as the document to send to county election officials in all 50 states and DC.

The trained VFA volunteers are at Mercurio Hotel (Francisca Rodríguez 168) in the heart of the Zona Romántica, in Puerto Vallarta every Wednesday through 28 February from 11:00AM-3:00PM.

This service is for US Citizens who are living abroad and do not plan to return to the US to vote in person. US voters use the same FPCA to both register to vote initially and to request a ballot each year. Overseas voters need to send in this form to request their ballot every calendar year in which they intend to vote. The FPCA is one page and generally takes only a few minutes to fill out and send in. It provides significant benefits, including protecting overseas ballots at the federal level.

US Citizens should know that their sacred and important right and responsibility to vote continues even when living far from the United States at the time of elections. Their ballot absolutely will be counted! States are legally required to count every valid ballot received before the election result may be certified. When a race “called” for a candidate after the close of polls, that’s a provisional assessment that the remaining outstanding ballots are not numerically sufficient to alter the outcome. However, the actual outcome cannot be certified until all ballots have been tallied — including ballots from overseas voters!

We at Democrats Abroad are grateful for Vote From Abroad and we support their efforts! Also, thanks to Mercurio Hotel and their staff for their support of VFA! Let’s make this election the highest turnout of overseas voters ever!