CNN International - November 3, 2024
Interview with U.S. Vote Foundation President and CEO, Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat
CNN Moderator: Alayna Treene
Alayna Treene: When U.S. citizens live outside the country, their right to vote has always been considered sacrosanct, and not just for members of the U.S. Armed forces, but also for civilians abroad who now outnumber those in the military. Well, this expatriate voting block is now enormous, about 6.5 million people around the world - potentially enough to swing election results. And typically, it's proven more favorable to democrats. So, it's now the target of Republican backed lawsuits.
For more on this, we're joined by Susan Suinat, President and CEO of the U.S. Vote Foundation. She joins us from Munich, Germany. Thank you for joining us. As we say, 6.5 million American voters are overseas. 1.6 million of them from battleground states. I mean, if they actually do cast their votes, they could potentially move some of these swing states.
Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat: Good morning and it's great to be with you today to talk about this important topic. I agree, absolutely… the overseas vote is that pot at the end of the rainbow. It really is something to go after. The issue we have is that it's not a last-minute thing to reach for. We've seen some of the campaigns issue letters or videos, but this is a long-term thing. And so, it remains to be seen whether these last-minute efforts really do change anything.
Alayna Treene: Tell us about how these campaigns are mobilizing these voters.
Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat: There's been greater investment this year in reaching out to overseas voters. They're truly hard to find. When we go overseas, we're not requested or required to register with a U.S. consulate or embassy, so it's just very hard to know where we all. So many of us are temporarily overseas as aid workers, missionaries, teachers, families that are overseas for a year or two. It's difficult to find them when they're out there. And many of them don't realize that when they leave the U.S., they're carrying their right to vote in their pocket.
These new outreach efforts were very much online. A lot of webinars and advertising efforts we'll see, I guess, in the long term, if they actually work, because this is, as I said, a long-term effort. You have to be addressing these voters well in advance. They need to register and request their ballots early on in the year to be sure to receive those blank ballots on time to return them.
Alayna Treene: I was going to say, is something that is quantified - early voting - is that available to American expats, and do we have a percentage of how many have already cast their vote?
Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat: By default, we are all early voters because we are by default, absentee voters. And we must sign up using one specific form, which does, wonderfully, two things at the same time. It will both register you as an overseas voter and request your absentee ballot, because we all need those absentee ballots. It should be done as early as possible in the year.
And then as of 45 days prior to the election those ballots start going out. That was September 21st of this year. Most overseas voters will have cast those ballots quite quickly. Definitely, if they're not already in, you're kind of out of luck.
Alayna Treene: Susan, overseas ballots as we mentioned, they have been found to be favorable for Democrats. And interestingly, there are multiple GOP backed lawsuits against them suggesting voter fraud. Will this stand up and could it cause problems for this election?
Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat: I think there are a lot of generalizations made. Overseas voters are very diverse. You can't assume that they all vote for one party. That's a mistake, fundamentally. These lawsuits have cast attention onto our ballots and onto our votes, which is great. There's a good side to it, because more awareness is a good thing. But they also have cast doubt on whether the ballots will be counted, which is an old, old myth that we've tried to tackle over the last 20 years.
And I hope with the reaction to these lawsuits and the blowback, which has been really bipartisan…. I mean, the overseas voting laws historically have all been bipartisan as well. So, the blow-back was pretty equal and it has brought with it the idea that your ballot maybe won't be counted. That's reared its ugly head once again, but I hope people have seen the fierce reaction that we have had. We have banded together. Overseas Americans are organized. We've come together and we've fought these accusations quite effectively.