Beating the filibuster
Stanley Grossman claims voteabroad.org made a big difference on Capitol Hill
Thursday, 10, Jul 2008 12:00
As veterans of the 2000 election will know, every vote counts in US politics.
That's why even those Americans not living in the land of the free like to do everything they can to influence elections. This November it will be no different, with the Democrats hoping a new secret weapon will play a major role in giving them a filibuster-proof Senate.
It turns out the key is voter registration. This has traditionally been a complicated business; different states have different rules and the mountain of getting Americans living abroad to look up complicated guidance has been a tough one to climb for activists. In 2004 the US state department estimated only 16 per cent of citizens living abroad voted, compared to turnout of 62 per cent among those living in the US.
Stanley Grossman, a member of Democrats Abroad who lives and works in London, believes there are two reasons for this "huge gap".
"One, Americans living overseas don't even know if they're eligible to vote. By US law, every American citizen has the right to vote in federal elections. "Secondly, people don't have a clue how to do it. That accounts for the low turnout."
Professor Grossman has helped come up with the answer to this second problem - votefromabroad.org.
"It's mindless, and it's in Spanish," he explains enthusiastically. The website certainly looks straightforward enough. It works like a questionnaire and does all the hard work for you. Users select which state they are from, or the state their parents are from if they have never lived in the US. They then answer a set of questions, mail off the completed form and put their feet up.
"The state receives your application, sends you a ballot in plenty of time, you return it and you vote." Simple as that.
Democrats Abroad has been running for 44 years but has traditionally been frustrated by the practical difficulties of voter registration. Even today no one knows how many Americans actually live outside the US. The beauty of the website is that, rather than seeking the voters out individually, they can come to the site themselves. Now, for activists living overseas, "our mission in life is to disseminate information about votefromabroad.org."
A real difference
There is evidence that this previously untapped resource of votes is helping out the Democrat cause. But Prof Grossman even believes his party's current control of the Senate may be due to his voter registration drive.
The 2006 midterms saw an incredibly tight race for control of the Senate. As results filtered in, attention focused on Virginia - where Jim Webb was seeking victory for the Democrats. Eventually he emerged triumphant, handing the Democrats a majority of one, but with a margin of less than 10,000 votes.
"He received more than that number of overseas voters in the election," Prof Grossman points out, "so we claim with, I believe, some justification that our voter registration efforts. provided the margin of victory for Jim Webb in Virginia which led for the first time in ten years to control of the Senate by the Democrats."
The website was set up in April 2006 and so only had a limited effect on the midterms - even if, as Prof Grossman claims, it led to a Democrat majority in Congress' upper chamber. This autumn supremacy, not a majority, is the Democrats' goal.
Under the US political system opposition senators are able to drone on and on to block legislation they oppose. The filibuster, as the move is known, has on many occasions in the past frustrated presidents and Congress leaders seeking to push through reforms. It can only be stopped by a three-fifths majority in the Senate. That is the new Democratic target.
"There is a possibility of picking up a further nine," Prof Grossman explains. "A Democratic president with a Democratic Congress and the ability to stop obstruction by the Republicans would go a long way to undoing some of the damage done by the Republicans in the last eight years."
It seems an unusual ploy - but one which is proving US politics really does reach across the Atlantic to our shores. Prof Grossman believes the website may make a real difference come November 4th.
"I hope that Barack Obama wins in a landslide and doesn't need overseas votes," he finished. "Whether or not that happens, there will be close Senate and Congressional races. We hope it will have a huge impact."
Stanley Grossman was talking to Alex Stevenson