The fine print of universal suffrage.

April 18, 2006 2:14 AM

Who gets to vote in US Presidential elections? Specifically, what are the rules for expats, Guam, and other edge cases?

I understand residents of the 50 states and the District of Columbia are represented in the Electoral College (i.e. they get to vote). Also, I believe expats and soldiers may remain associated with their last stateside address and vote by mail. Mostly I'm curious about the details:

Can an expat from, say, California, vote by mail indefinitely?
What about expats from other states or DC?
Can a CA voter move to Guam and keep voting as a CA absentee voter?
If a Guam resident moves to CA for university, can he move back to Guam and keep voting via CA?

A previous question, Did I spurn California for good?, discusses related issues.

posted by ryanrs to Law & Government (4 answers total)

A lot of the information you've asked for is state specific (i.e. how long you can count yourself as a resident after you've actually left, depending on where you went to).

For the bits that aren't, and *some* of the state specific stuff, you should check out the Federal Voting Assistance Program.

Which includes such useful bits as Voting By Citizens Who Have Never Lived In The United States

And Voting Residency Guidelines for UOCAVA Citizens
posted by tiamat at 4:56 AM on April 18, 2006 [1 favorite]

As tiamat says, this is a state issue and it's the state's discretion. At the risk of overstating, I believe that if the state wished to pick its electoral representatives using tea leaves and astrology, they could.

Buried deep in the wikipedia entry on the electoral college is this bit:

"the Constitution gives the power to the state legislatures to decide how electors are chosen"

And sure enough, if you go check the second article of the Constitution, you find this:

"Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector." (emphasis mine)

I don't have time right now to go looking, but I expect you'll find that at least a few states codify their method in their constitution. You can go look at one of the more infamous states in this regard at myflorida.com if you like.

But in a nutshell, this means the answer to your question "Who gets to vote in US Presidential elections?" is "anyone whose opinion a US state wishes to listen to." It would never happen, but Ohio is free to decide that from now on they want to base their elector choices on the opinion of the tallest waitress on shift at the oldest restaurant within a 1 mile radius of the Eiffel Tower.
posted by phearlez at 9:47 AM on April 18, 2006

Why bother voting? Even if there was zero fraud in the last presidential election, the voting system can hardly be considered secure.
posted by angrybeaver at 1:12 PM on April 18, 2006

Response by poster: I suppose the provisions of the 15^th, 19^th, 24^th, and 26^th amendments are irrelevant if electors are not chosen by popular vote.

BTW, websites for the territories appear to be the .gov equivalent of geocities. Bleh.
posted by ryanrs at 2:15 PM on April 18, 2006