Every month, Democrats Abroad France brings you need-to-know news, events, and information.
In this edition:
- News That Didn't Make the Headlines
- Register & Request Your Ballot!
- Taxes and Voting
- Help Write DA's 2024 Platform
- Intern with Us
- Volunteer With Us!
- Phonebank Together
- Turning out the Vote: Our Dollars Will Make the Difference
- Events: Join Us in Person & Online
News that Didn't Make the Headlines
At the top of the ballot, we don't choose between people: Our votes choose among different visions of the future, enacted by an administration put in power by a coalition. In 2020, our votes empowered Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan to end Reaganomics and defend the economic rights of average Americans.
The Biden-Harris Administration closed the neoliberal era opened by Reagan with a sharp break with austerity economics, the unraveling of 60 years of union-busting policy, the return of industrial policy and state capacity, and whole-of-government approaches to economic justice and fairness ...in short, a concerted effort to rebuild the economy “from the bottom up and middle out.” Read more about FTC Chair Lina Khan’s groundbreaking work in our latest post.
Register & Request Your Ballot!
If you’ve read our newsletters recently, hopefully you’ve already registered and requested your ballot for the 2024 elections by going to VoteFromAbroad.org. Need ballot assistance? Our trained voter assistance team is standing by! Email us at [email protected], call or text us at 07-555-FRDEM (07 55 53 73 36), or drop in on one of our online voter assistance sessions.
As you surely know, the deadline for US citizens living abroad to file their US tax returns is coming up on June 17th. Are you concerned that voting will impact your tax status? Be reassured: There is no link between voting in federal elections and federal income tax. Election officials in the states where we vote do not share information with the IRS. This means that all US citizens can vote for president and Congress without impacting your tax status. Depending on the state where you vote, you may also be able to vote for state and local elections like governor, state senators and reps, mayor, school board, and others.
A recent webinar with detailed information and a good summary of the relationship between voting and taxes, with DA Taxation Task Force Chair Rebecca Lammers, is available here. If you still have questions about voting and taxes, email our Taxation Task Force.
And in case you missed it: Democrats Abroad France recently organized a webinar on Estate Planning for Americans in France. If you’d like to purchase the recording for $10, please go here. Other recorded tax webinars by DA’s Taxation Task Force are available for purchase here.
Help Dems Abroad Write Our 2024 Platform
We invite you to actively shape the 2024 Democrats Abroad Platform, which embodies our shared aspirations, values, and concerns. Our dedicated members are currently drafting the 2024 Platform, with input from thousands of Democrats Abroad members worldwide. To give direct, written input into the Platform drafting process, please fill out this survey, or join us on Sunday, May 5th, from 10am to 11:30 am CEST for a town hall meeting to discuss our draft platform. Go here for more information. And you're invited to join us for DA’s Global Convention and AGM May 31st to June 2nd, online and in Costa Rica.
Intern with Us
We're actively seeking interns for late August through mid-November. Interns must be students in France and may be US or French citizens. For more information, please email DA France National Chair Dani Follett.
Want to help Americans abroad vote to keep The Former Guy out of office, protect democracy, and retake the House so we can accomplish even more of the progressive Biden-Harris agenda? Fill out this form, and we’ll contact you to let you know all the ways you can help.
One great way to help is to join our phonebanking team. Phonebanking is an important way to make a difference this year. It’s easy and free, and you can do it from your home computer on your own time. We’re calling our members in France to make sure that they’re registered and ready to vote. We get a lot of people thanking us for the call!
Phonebank (v.): To call a group of people (in our case, our fellow DA members) to ask them something. Our calls are a support service to our members, making sure they've registered to vote are ready to vote as well as answering any questions they may have.
We’re holding regular Zoom sessions where our phonebankers get together for support. Join us from 6pm to 7pm on Wednesday, May 1st, Wednesday, May 8th, Thursday, May 16th, Thursday, May 23rd, and Wednesday, May 29th. Our current campaign will end May 31st, and we’ll start phonebanking again in mid-August.
Dems Abroad volunteers are hard at work RIGHT NOW, making sure everyone is registered so we can turn out every possible vote. Small groups around France are meeting, making plans for running voter registration tables or attending networking events to pass out our Vote From Abroad cards. New members are joining every day. We remember how OUR votes from abroad in 2020 swung the election for President Biden in Georgia and Arizona—two of the three critical swing states—and we know we have even more Americans here in France than we did back then.
The election may be months away, but we're already spending money: advertising on social and traditional media, phonebanking, and printing VoteFromAbroad.org cards to hand out, like chapters are doing right this minute.
We need funds to support our volunteers. We need to register voters now, build our volunteer base, and find Americans. We need your money all year long, but money NOW is more valuable than money in October.
When the votes are tallied in November, and everyone sees how OUR votes made the difference, our influence grows, and our priorities get addressed.
To donate to DA France, please click here. Please consider giving as a monthly sustaining donor: These investments, big or small, help us immensely as they allow us to budget for the rest of the year.
We’re very grateful for your donation! 
Join Us In Person and Online!
Don't forget to check out our upcoming events HERE.
Each Monday on social media, we highlight other DA events that happen online and work for our timezone. Facebook :: Instagram :: Twitter