April 26, 2006 --

Terry Lierman, Maryland Chair, and DNC
Vice Chair Lottie Shackelford commented on this resolution during the
DNC Resolutions Committee meeting on April 20th, where it passed
unanimously.

The April 2006 GAO study of the 2004 election indicated three main
challenges to voting from abroad, including the “time-consuming,
multistep absentee voting process, which has different requirements and
time frames established by each state.” In registering military and
overseas citizens for the past thirty years, Democrats Abroad has faced
this challenge every election year.

To facilitate our absentee voting process, the Democratic National
Committee recognizes the need for a standard set of nationwide election
laws for uniformed and overseas voters and urges Congress to provide
adequate federal funding for states for the maintenance of state-wide
databases, require state offices to coordinate the overseas voting
process (rather than the individual county), and permit permanent
registration with the same purging rules as for domestic voters. In the
resolutions on overseas voting passed by the DPCA in March and by the
DNC, Democrats mark the importance of voting from abroad, working
towards greater participation.

Thanks go to ED Emeritus Thomas Fina for his analysis of the
progress made, and still to be made, since Americans abroad first
obtained the right to vote, to former Swiss Chair Warren Furth for
drafting the initial DPCA resolution, to International Secretary Robert
Checkoway for wordsmithing, to International Counsel Joe Smallhoover
for review and ongoing work on voting issues, and to all our DNC
members, past and present, for the good relationships they have built
within the DNC.

Thanks also go to Robert Bell, Connie Borde, Michael Ceurvorst, Liv
Gibbons, Leo Perez Minaya, Theresa Morelli, Brent O’Leary and our
Executive Director Ali Chalupa for their outreach to DNC members in
support of this important resolution, and to our co-sponsors and the
DNC for recognizing the thirtieth anniversary of overseas voting.

Christine Schon Marques
International Vice Chair
Democrats Abroad makes it easy at www.VoteFromAbroad.org