Utlendighet

Lately I've been feeling like I'm not on the same wavelength as a lot of the people I come into contact with on the internet. This has particularly been the case in a thread on a discussion forum I frequent. The topic was whether expats should have voting rights in their country of origin. Since I'm a relatively new expat, this is an emotional issue for me. I was upset to read that so many feel my right to vote in the US should be terminated. I'm pretty ambivalent about the US, but one of the things that I have valued most is the democratic process, and I have always taken my right to vote very seriously. I've never missed an election and work hard to inform myself on the issues. I would say that voting is one of the few things that really makes me feel specifically American, rather than just a cosmopolitan mutt.

The overwhelming majority of participants in the thread have made it clear that they think I forfeited my right to vote when I moved overseas, regardless of the fact that I maintain citizenship. They may well be right about this, but so far at least, I would be really devastated if that right actually were to be terminated. In fact, if it were to happen, I would most likely apply for Norwegian citizenship (not planning on doing that otherwise) in protest.

I thought I'd quote from one of the most negative comments. The poster quotes and responds to a number of my statements (in italics) from earlier in the thread:

The problem with this is, as the OP states, that the person essentially becomes totally disenfranchised, since the “host” country doesn’t grant the expat voting rights either. It feels very unfair to not be allowed to vote in either one of the two countries. Not sure if it actually is unfair, but it feels that way.

No, not unfair. You made a choice to leave your birth country.

In my case, I still have two more years of continuous residence to go before I can begin voting here in Norway, and then only in local elections (kommunevalg). I will never be able to vote in parliamentary elections unless I relinquish my US citizenship, which I don’t plan on doing. I have always voted in US elections during the years that I have been abroad (5 spread out over various periods before moving permanently). I plan to continue to do so, and the very thought of having that right terminated really gets my hackles up.

You know what? I personally don’t want people like you, living overseas permanently, having a say in what happens in the country I live in. Why do you feel you should get a say in what happens election wise, in a country you don’t care enough to live in? That gets my hackles up.

What exactly is the rationale for taking the right away? Who is to say that a given person is more informed simply by being in residence? I think we have plenty of evidence that a high percentage of the US voting public is woefully uninformed, regardless of country of residence

Because you don’t live here? Because without living here, you’re getting very filtered information about the political scene and can’t make an informed decision? I’m sure that there are people in France that are more informed politically than some people here in the US, by choice of course. However, that doesn’t mean that those folks in France should have a say in our political system. What it means is that we need to be more pushy about letting people know it’s not OK to stay ignorant. And more than likely, those folks that don’t care enough to know? They don’t care enough to vote either. (from personal experience). And those people in France? They don’t get the same coverage we do, they don’t get the rallys, they don’t get the campaigning.

There are a lot of reasons why people want or must live abroad. For example, I have a child with a non-US citizen. If we were to divorce, I would relinquish my parental rights entirely were I to move back to the US without the consent of my co-parent.

Having a child with a non-US citizen was entirely your choice though.

Expat life is hard enough as it is (one small example: I do two sets of income tax forms every year). I think the UK law is terrible. I’m very grateful that the US has not terminated this right.

many lives are hard. In fact, if your largest complaint is having to do two income taxes (which hubby and I have had to do a few times, every time we’ve moved states), then I don’t feel sorry for you. There are people here that work three jobs and still go to bed hungry. I for one, wish the US would terminate the rights for people to vote that don’t actually live here. It gives people a voice they shouldn’t have, and the thought of someone who lives permanently overseas having a say in MY country downright pisses me off.
ETA some formatting and: I didn’t specify that I don’t mean all people living abroad with US citizenship. I do mean people that choose to leave, have no plans of coming back and have been gone for at least 5 years.

 Obviously it's the poster's second statement that is the hardest to swallow. Why all the ire, I wonder? I hadn't realized that the general level of animosity toward expats is so high!

It bums me out.