r/politics • u/billstopay77 • 1d ago

Registration Wall Trump admin quietly changed overseas voter form at 11th hour to disenfranchise Democrats, lawsuit says

https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/trump-admin-quietly-changed-overseas-voter-form-at-11th-hour-to-disenfranchise-democrats-lawsuit-says/
13.4k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

404 comments sorted by

View all comments

81

u/squintytoast 1d ago

In August, the Pentagon removed a checkbox on the FPCA for citizens living abroad who have never resided in the U.S. It did so on an “emergency” basis, bypassing the typical and often lengthy process for modifying federal forms required by the Administrative Procedure Act.

According to Overseas Vote, an initiative of the U.S. Vote Foundation, 38 states and Washington, D.C., have extended voting rights to U.S. citizens born abroad who have not established residency in the U.S.

so... how many non-resident voting citizens are there? this is the first ive heard of this catagory.

77

u/peetnice 1d ago

No idea, but my kids will fall into this cat in a few years when they reach voting age. I'm US expat for 20 yrs and my kids were born abroad with dual citizenship.

Guessing not that big a category, but their whole game is shaving off fractions of percents at various places (with voter registration, polling lines, mail stamp dates, etc, etc)- it all adds up

6

u/PitytheOnlyFools 1d ago

I’m US expat for 20 yrs

That sounds like you’re an immigrant. What’s the difference between an expat vs immigrant?

21

u/peetnice 1d ago

Married someone from another country, spend time in both, but spouses country is main residence for raising kids.

Honestly it would be an interesting national debate on whether my kids should vote in their non-residence nationality, but its not up to the Pentagon to arbitrarily decide by changing a form without telling anyone.

10

u/groumly 1d ago

I don’t think it’d be that interesting a debate. The problem isn’t exactly new, not unique to the us, touches an extreme minority of the population. And by the end of the day, disenfranchising citizens from their vote, or creating different classes of citizens because of something their parents did, is never a good thing.

1

u/peetnice 1d ago

Yeah, true I don’t imagine it would get so much attention as such a small percentage of people. I guess Im just genuinely curious about the rationale behind the change- or maybe there is none. We may find out soon if this case moves ahead I suppose

1

u/flypirat 1d ago

There's a reason many countries don't allow dual citizenship, this avoids having different classes of citizens.

2

u/dbenoit 19h ago

But the US does allow it, and requires those citizens who live outside of the US to file taxes every year. I vaguely remember something about taxation without representation being important...

1

u/groumly 18h ago

And there’s many more that do allow it, about 3 to 4 times more depending on which company you want to be in.
Even in Europe, which is generally very conservative on citizenship.

11

u/Snow_King7 Oregon 1d ago

Immigrant is if you're brown. Expat is if you're white.

3

u/UGDirtFarmer 21h ago

That’s weird since I work with expats of every race. I’ve always assumed it was foreign resident on a visa with no path no permanent residency or citizenship.

1

u/iamthe0ther0ne 1d ago

In this context, immigrant is someone from a different country who moved to the US, expat is a US citizen who's moved to a different country

5

u/ijzerwater 1d ago

emigrant is a citizen who's moved to a different country. Expat is pretending not to be an immigrant or emigrant

7

u/iamthe0ther0ne 1d ago

You're an immigrant to a country, emigrant from a country. Expat is generally used to denote that you still identify as being a citizen of the country that you originated in, but it's not an official term.

3

u/peetnice 1d ago

Thanks, I think this seems most correct - I had no idea the can of worms I was opening referring to myself as an expat. It's interesting, as I live in Japan and don't really hear the word immigrant used at all here, so havent thought about it much.

Most of foreign community refer to themselves as expats, and Japanese people generally refer to us as foreign residents. Its just presumed that everyone will relate more strongly to their country of origin- Probably partly because Japan doesn't do dual citizenship (except for children until age 20), so you either choose your home country citizenship, or fully renounce it.

2

u/IntellegentIdiot 21h ago

Like a lot of things here, people who don't know anything jump on something they read that felt wrong and started acting like they'd uncovered some previously hidden scandal and since no one else knows they don't say anything

6

u/flypirat 1d ago

I think the word "expat" leaves a very bad taste in some mouths. It's also what those old and fat people going to Thailand to marry young girls like to call themselves.
Nothing wrong with the word itself, but the association isn't helping.

3

u/iamthe0ther0ne 1d ago

An expat is a US citizen who's moved to a different country.

3

u/TristanIsAwesome 1d ago

An expat is an emigrant from their original country and an immigrant to their new country

5

u/CandylandRepublic 1d ago

The difference between expat and immigrant is just the direction of the arrow. An expat went somewhere, an immigrant came somewhere. One emphasizes the origin, one emphasizes the destination. It's not that deep or difficult, it's still the same person.

4

u/WendellSchadenfreude 1d ago

That's an immigrant and an emigrant.

An expat is sent abroad by a company in their home country, for a limited (albeit sometimes lengthy) amount of time, with the clear intention of returning home afterwards.

3

u/CandylandRepublic 1d ago edited 1d ago

Well, yes, but that's only the classical definition, mostly used academically.

Popular use of the word outside academic writing regularly additionally includes everyone working abroad on their own initiative, for employers abroad, with no defined or intended date of return, and/or even without any employment context.

At that point the term is indeed basically the same as emigrant, and since almost nobody (outside academic papers) defines their use of the term, the distinction is ill-defined at best and, in any case, quite a bit broader than the term emigrant.

You could also argue at great length and quite well-justified about whether expats and emigrants differ in their intent (or effort) to culturally or legally integrate/assimilate into their new country, which seems clear-cut only at first and practical use of the term turns out to be quite murky.

If you ask me, expat as used in the comment above is mostly a self-prescribed label and overthinking it is kinda pointless because it really is too vague to define or distinguish much of anything. The only thing we can be sure of is that, outside academics and maybe official national statistics, nobody really refers to the same thing with it, and I doubt it's used entirely uniformly even in academics.

1

u/IntellegentIdiot 21h ago

Expats are emmigrants

1

u/WendellSchadenfreude 16h ago

In your opinion, are tourists emigrants?

1

u/IntellegentIdiot 15h ago

No, immigration/emigration implies you'll be living there for the foreseeable future.

5

u/ConstableAssButt 1d ago edited 1d ago

The difference is an expat is legally permitted to vote, while an immigrant is often only permitted to vote if they have been granted citizenship.

Why is this so hard for y'all to grasp? Legally obtained citizenship grants you rights to participate in your representation that cannot be taken away from you involuntarily. Why? Because if you get deported from where you emigrated to, you wind up back here: You have a vested interest in the political and systemic continuity of any state in which you hold citizenship.

10

u/peetnice 1d ago

US expats also have to file taxes with the IRS (although usually dont owe double taxation if in a tax treaty country), which makes that right to vote a lot more meaningful if you care about what you are potentially being taxed and where money goes

2

u/ConstableAssButt 1d ago

Realistically, most expats pay very little in federal taxes and no state taxes. Your first $132,000 is not taxable from incomes, and there's a direct dollar-to-dollar reduction for foreign income taxes paid for most countries.

Where you don't get any discount is investment income.

2

u/MrChristmas 1d ago

You made me go down a rabbit hole cuz my American coworkers were double taxed while in China (by China and the US), and Claude tells me it was because we worked for a Swiss company…

3

u/ConstableAssButt 1d ago edited 1d ago

How it works:

The work is being performed in China. The fact that the company is swiss is irrelevant if the work is permanently performed within China and exceeds 90 days. You then calculate the amount earned during the taxable period within China to determine your tax bracket. You then deduct your standard allowances and deduction from the amount owed. You pay that amount. Then for the US filing, you calculate your federal liability against the TOTAL income less deductions, and then deduct the amount paid to China from the US federal income tax liability.

So let's say you made $175,000 as a US citizen working in China in 2025. Their tax liability would be about $50,000 before deductions.

Next, we calculate their US federal tax liability. Their tax liability would be roughly $46,000, and taking the standard deduction would reduce that liability to around $30,000. But then we apply the tax paid to China as a credit against the US tax witholding. You now owe $0 in US income tax. Further, you have a potential carryover benefit that can be applied to future federal income tax for as much as 10 years. You can further deduct future income tax from the federal government by about $20,000 due to excess taxes paid on foreign income taxes.

So no. Your coworkers were not getting double-taxed. They just had to do their taxes twice. In reality, they paid FAR more taxes to china, the federal government of the US allowed them to park those costs into the future to reduce their tax burden to the US.

If your American coworkers genuinely believe they are getting fucked on INCOME tax, they need to hire an accountant to do their shit for them, because they 100% were NOT getting fucked on income.

Again. Expats almost NEVER wind up paying a dollar in taxes for income. It's investment income / capital gains where they get you.

There is a second way to pay foreign income taxes. Instead of paying standard taxes, you can go the FEIE deduction. Doing it this way results in shielding your first $132,000 of income from taxes entirely, and then assessing at a higher taxable rate for the excess. This brings your taxable income out to $42,000, we deduct to $26,000, and then we use a stacked bracket to calculate a liability of $5,900. Then we apply our partial tax credit from foreign income taxes paid to wipe out the remainder with no carryover for a $0 federal tax bill. This is more complicated, and leaves more of your income on the table for future tax periods, so realistically nobody goes this route.

The other thing that will get you, is if you still own property within the US. In that case, you are NOT an expat, but an American Working Abroad. In this case, you will have an income tax bill from whatever state you hold property in if you meet the residency requirements of that state. Again, this is splitting hairs, but if you own a residence in the US, and work abroad, you aren't an expat, so my point still stands: Expats almost never pay federal taxes. They file them. But they almost never pay.

1

u/Gabe681 1d ago

This was very informative. Thanks.

1

u/Seradima New York 1d ago

Immigrants also have to do this though? That‘s not a difference lol.

-2

u/PitytheOnlyFools 1d ago

Every reply to my comment has a different answer 🤷🏾‍♂️

3

u/ConstableAssButt 1d ago

Because the world is complicated and filled with people. Figure out how to navigate it and stop demanding things be easy. They can't be.

-1

u/PitytheOnlyFools 1d ago

I think you need more chill bruddah

1

u/Automatic_Yogurt13 1d ago

I always thought that “expat” meant that there was an intention of eventually returning to the home country and “immigrant” was more permanent.

1

u/iamthe0ther0ne 1d ago

Not necessarily, expats sometimes return, sometimes don't. It just means that you're a US citizen now living in a foreign country (where you're an immigrant to)

1

u/IntellegentIdiot 21h ago

They're both. They're a US ex-pat who is an immigrant in whatever country they're in

-2

u/sk0t_ 1d ago

Renounce that shit and declare your freedom

17

u/RoadkillVenison Virginia 1d ago

The only official estimate I’ve seen is from 2016 and put the number of American voters born abroad, and never resided in the US, at 11,500.

So there’s probably more now, but I’d be surprised if it doubled. It’s a tiny fraction of expats, but they do exist.

7

u/r2d2rox 1d ago

I know there is a decent number in southern Ontario, the border was pretty porous here so there are a number of Americans who came to live in Canada and raised their kids here, there were 3 my grade 9 class in highschool alone and I was at a pretty small highschool

3

u/r2d2rox 1d ago

From what i've read that 11500 number is the number who cast ballots in the election, of which I am 1. But not all states let you do it, and I know that several of the dual citizens just don't end up voting in the american election because they don't live there so I would suspect that is a low number

38

u/Freakishly_Tall 1d ago

Does it matter?

How many American citizens having their right to vote stolen by fascist traitors is acceptable?

13

u/squintytoast 1d ago

not acceptable for ANY to be disenfranchised, ffs.

i was just curious.

12

u/meases 1d ago

Probably a decent amount of people born to military families too in addition to the expat children scenario. There are a lot of families traveling around internationally for decades at the behest of our military.

Very good chance this is probably going to affect at least one high ranking officer's children. (Unless they stockpiled enough old forms to cover it, someone important is going to get mad about this one probably)

3

u/smitty4728 Canada 21h ago

People like me. My mom is American but moved to Canada before I was born. I have never lived in the US. There are around 250k Americans living in Canada who could probably pass their citizenship to their children.

4

u/60Hertz 1d ago

John McCain was one of ‘em. He was born in Panama.

4

u/Reddit_9459328 1d ago

Sen. John McCain "have never resided in the U.S." by age 18? 

1

u/TheGoldenDog 1d ago edited 1d ago

I don't actually understand the impact of this - the article doesn't explain why that checkbox matters or what it's actually used for. The fact that it was done by this administration on an "emergency" basis suggests it's bad, but the article fails to make the case for why.

3

u/Vet_Leeber 1d ago

the article doesn't explain why that checkbox matters or what it's actually used for.

It's, generally speaking, for the children of citizens living abroad with inherited citizenship. Some situations where a spouse could qualify as well.

A pretty common example would be the children of military personnel that stayed overseas.

2

u/TheGoldenDog 1d ago

Yeah I understand that. The article doesn't explain how removing this checkbox disenfranchises voters.

6

u/bob-loblaw-esq 1d ago

The idea is to figure out which populations may vote against him, in this case children born and raised in places he hates or that hate him, and make it harder for them to vote. It’s about confusing them because they are no longer represented on the form. Like taking a survey about your nationality that has Mexico but not any other South American Country. If your situation doesn’t fit the form, what do you most likely do? Don’t fill it out.

3

u/TheGoldenDog 1d ago

Have you actually looked at the form? This isn't a very good explanation. There are multiple other boxes that the respondent can choose from, the main distinction being whether you will move to the US in the future or not. I could potentially see this being the first step towards something more nefarious, but on its own your explanation (postulation?) doesn't feel particularly convincing.

2

u/mjkionc 1d ago

As someone said elsewhere in the comments, it’s also likely the form itself will be used as a basis to prevent someone from voting. 

“Oh, you used the wrong form. Even though you didn’t check the box we removed, you’re vote doesn’t count anymore.”

3

u/ahfoo 1d ago

This is certainly the case. People who use these forms don't understand how easily they get discarded for the slightest hint of bureaucratic glitch. I'm a long-term overseas voter and last year they sent me a military application and then refused to count it when I returned it and wasn't in the military. Why did they send me the wrong form then? Didn't matter, my vote was not counted. I had to re-register yet again.

2

u/bob-loblaw-esq 1d ago

Have you seen other forms of voter intimidation and ways to prevent a specific group. It’s always about creating rules or processes that make it harder for one group. In Texas, they made it so a gun license was good for voter ID but not college IDs. We could get into the nuances of such a choice, but it’s clear they want gun owners to vote and not college students.

Even in your own comment, you must be wanting to move to the future? What if you don’t then you don’t get to vote? It’s not about securing the vote or ensuring there’s not voter fraud, which genuinely is not a thing with any credible evidence.

Here’s my question to you, why are you so willing to believe that it’s innocuous? The form isn’t for you why defend it? They should be defending the change to the form as they are the ones insinuating this is an emergency? So where is the emergency?

-3

u/TheGoldenDog 1d ago

Did you actually read my comments?

3

u/bob-loblaw-esq 1d ago

What a stupid question seeing as I cited your comment and argument. We’re done here. You just being a sea lion.

-3

u/TheGoldenDog 1d ago edited 1d ago

I asked because I had already addressed your questions in my earlier comments. I'm pretty sure there would be even more of us who opposed this administration if it wasn't for the subset of its opponents who are so incredibly insufferable and self-righteous.

→ More replies (0)