Voting in Elections? USA

[reynoldsa]

We plan to live aboard in the Med starting June 2020. We will return to the USA (avoiding Schengen) right before the 2020 election. We are renting our home, so we do not have a residence in Iowa, although we own the property. Please share how you retain voting rights when you're not actually living on the property you own. thank you

[Paul L]

You will remain a resident of the state/country that you last lived in. Sign up for an absentee ballot. Have it mailed to wherever you have your mail dealt with. The mailing address does not need to be in the same state.

[john61ct]

Politicians in some jurisdictions with thousands of "nomadic non-actual residents" domiciled & registered there, overwhelming the smaller number of physical residents, have tried to interfere with the former's voting rights.

St Brendan's Isle & Escapees apparently got their lawyers on it, situation now resolved.

Personally I think we should otherwise stay out of the local politics, fair enough,

but of course State & Federal are another matter.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by john61ct

Politicians in some jurisdictions with thousands of "nomadic non-actual residents" domiciled & registered there, overwhelming the smaller number of physical residents, have tried to interfere with the former's voting rights.

St Brendan's Isle & Escapees apparently got their lawyers on it, situation now resolved.

Personally I think we should otherwise stay out of the local politics, fair enough,

but of course State & Federal are another matter.

This has almost no relationship to the OP's question.

The OP is currently and has been a real fully legitimate resident of his community. The rules allow you to retain your residency until you qualify for a new residency in another US location while retaining full voting rights. The OP can simply request an absentee ballot and no one is likely to have any issue with the stray person utilizing this right.

The issue you are bringing up is people claiming residency while never having lived in the jurisdiction. In many cases, never having even visited but set it up remotely. By concentrating these quasi-residents in a small community, they disrupt the election process. While it does impact the Federal and State elections, it's usually small enough impact, that most won't bother being concerned. At the local level, if you have say 2000 residents and 500 quasi-residents, it is very likely that they can sway the local votes if the quasi-residents have a different voting pattern from the residents, so the locals have a legitimate concern.

[john61ct]

Yes, exactly the view I also expressed

[boatman1]

I should think that you’d be best served by communicating with the registrar of elections in the district where you’ve previously voted.

[Sailor647]

We sold our house prior to cruising. We now use our daughters address in Oregon, USA as our legal physical address. (We also have a PO Box in the same town as our mailing address, which she checks for us.)

We use our legal physical addess for our Oregon Driver's Licenses and our Federal and State Voter Registration. Oregon adopted Vote By Mail years ago, so we are able to vote by email - yes email - from anywhere in the world, after we sign the "We know our vote is no longer private" form.

Because you still own the house, I believe that could be used as your legal physical address, which would allow you to get a PO Box in the same town that you could use as your mailing address. (And have someone you trust check for you.)

I don't believe there is any way to avoid maintaining a legal address in the US if you still want the privledges of being a US citizen and being allowed to vote.

[jmschmidt]

Hey dude don't sweat, anyone can vote in our elections, even dead people. No residence, no ID, no nothing, just show up.

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by Sailor647

I don't believe there is any way to avoid maintaining a legal address in the US if you still want the privledges of being a US citizen and being allowed to vote.

St Brendan's Isle and Escapees can provide a legal domicile "residential" address for a fee if you don't have other options.

In addition to their excellent mail forwarding and other services.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by Sailor647

...

I don't believe there is any way to avoid maintaining a legal address in the US if you still want the privledges of being a US citizen and being allowed to vote.

To vote in Federal elections you dont need USA residency, just citizenship, and vote absentee.

At the State level, it depends on the State.

See:

https://travel.state.gov/content/tra...ad/voting.html

[cherylchecheryl]

If you are not going to be living in a particular country, why should you want to determine how it is governed?

[john61ct]

Well we still have to pay our taxes, why shouldn't we get to vote?

Really should be mandatory like Oz and Israel afaic

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by belizesailor

To vote in Federal elections you dont need USA residency, just citizenship, and vote absentee.

At the State level, it depends on the State.

See:

https://travel.state.gov/content/tra...ad/voting.html

A bit of wandering into semantics but there are no federal election polling sites. The states/local jurisdictions run election polling sites...so you do need to be considered a resident of a state/local jurisdiction to vote.

If you don't have a traditional residence, your officially recognized residence is your last traditional residence.
- There are rules in place if you never had a traditional residence.
- The technical term may be domicile or something else but for most practical purposes, it doesn't matter.

[cherylchecheryl]

Originally Posted by john61ct

Well we still have to pay our taxes, why shouldn't we get to vote?

Really should be mandatory like Oz and Israel afaic

But voting for how a country is governed and not living there is a bit like not eating your own cooking. You won't be living under the policies that you vote for to see implemented. Those policies may sound wonderful on paper, but may not be so great in reality.

Further, if you are traveling, with 30 day ocean passages and living in far-off places, are you really an informed voter? You will have limited access to news and will be totally dependent on media for forming your opinions. The news media has increasingly become less objective and more opinion based. How much news coverage will you even have access to when you are in some far-off place?

If you prefer to live your life in other countries, why would you want to vote in elections in a country that you don't want to live in?

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

A bit of wandering into semantics but there are no federal election polling sites. The states/local jurisdictions run election polling sites...so you do need to be considered a resident of a state/local jurisdiction to vote.



If you don't have a traditional residence, your officially recognized residence is your last traditional residence.

- There are rules in place if you never had a traditional residence.

- The technical term may be domicile or something else but for most practical purposes, it doesn't matter.

No you dont. Ive not lived in the USA since 2004 not maintained USA residency (address yes, residency no). I do have legal residency in other countries.

"Domicile" as Im familiar with it applies to taxation.