OVERSEAS BALLOTS AND STEALING THE ELECTION

How a Federal Law Designed to Facilitate Voting for Americans Living Overseas May be Used by Democrats to Harvest Ineligible Ballots

Today, we present a guest post from Daniel R. Street.  Daniel is an attorney with over 28 years of experience litigating in State and Federal courts.  He is the author of four books dealing with news media propaganda and misinformation.  He also provides legal analysis of legal issues.  His articles have been published at The Blaze, The Daily Wire and American Greatness to name a few. Please consider supporting independent journalism by becoming a free or paid subscriber to his substack, Daniel R. Street's Fake News Exposed.

OVERSEAS BALLOTS AND STEALING THE ELECTION

For weeks, conservative media reported on the potential for Democrats to use a federal law designed to make voting easier for Americans living overseas, including American military personnel and their families stationed in foreign countries, to illegitimately pad vote totals for the Harris/Walz camp.  Is there any merit to these stories?  Unfortunately, the concerns about the potential for abuse of the law are legitimate.  Let’s take a closer look.

The law at issue is known as The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act or UOCAVA (commonly pronounced “You-Uh-Cava”).  The statute may be found at 52 U.S.C. §20301, et. seq.  Congress passed the law in 1986 to facilitate voting by members of the United States military, their family members and American citizens living overseas.  (The law has been amended several times in the years since 1986.)

How Does UOCAVA Help Overseas Voters?

The UOCAVA is fairly complex with extensive provisions delegating voter registration and voting by each state, in conjunction with each state’s election laws, but is administered by the United States Secretary of Defense who delegates his authority to the Federal Voting Assistance Program.  The UOCAVA facilitates voting by military personnel and citizens overseas by:

1.     Allowing these voters to register to vote using a standardized form called a Federal Post Card Application;

2.     Allowing these voters to cast a ballot using a Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot if a states’ absentee ballot does not arrive in time; and

3.     Requiring States to mail absentee ballots to these voters at least 45 days prior to a federal election.

There are a host of other provisions of the UOCAVA, however, these are some of the more pertinent provisions for the issues covered in this article.

Who is Covered by UOCAVA?

The UOCAVA applies to several different groups of Americans.  These are:

1.     Members of the Uniformed Services and their spouses and dependents;

2.     Members of the Merchant Marine and their spouses and dependents; and

3.     A person who resides outside the United States and “is qualified to vote in the last place in which the person was domiciled before leaving the United States” or who “resides outside the United States and (but for such residence) would be qualified to vote in the last place in which the person was domiciled before leaving the United States.”

4.     There is yet another problematic sub-group:  persons who are American citizens who never resided in the United States at all. (The UOCAVA does not create any rights for these voters, but some states do allow them to cast ballots.)

The law extends far beyond the ballots of the military and their family members to millions of other Americans living overseas.  In fact, in the 2020 election approximately 63% of UOCAVA ballots were cast by Americans living overseas who were not in the service.

The Issues with UOCAVA

Foremost among the problems with this law are the lack of verification of citizenship, proof of residence or voter identification for overseas voters.  For non-military overseas voters, voter registration is largely based on the “honor system” under this law.

 The potential for votes to be cast by ineligible voters exists because states do not require verification of citizenship, identity or residence from these non-military overseas voters. 

The Federal Voter Assistance Program (FVAP) website contains online voter registration links for every state in the USA.  The states’ webpages confirm ID is not required. Here is the screenshot of the online registration page for Wisconsin (the link to the page is here):

Here is a screenshot of the online registration page for Michigan (the link to the page is here):

As you can see, an overseas voter is offered the opportunity to register WITHOUT any ID or SSN by selecting the “NONE” box. What happens if a prospective overseas voter submits an application without any SSN or DL number? According to the U.S. Vote Foundation, a private non-profit providing voting information to Americans, overseas voters who DO NOT HAVE an SSN or valid state driver’s license can still file their voter registration application and will usually be issued a number for voting purposes:

The U.S. Vote Foundation also provides a State Voting Requirements page where voters, including overseas voters, may reference each state’s identification requirements.  Click the link above and you will be able to navigate to one swing state after another and see the “identification” required of overseas voters.  The results for Michigan are produced below for illustrative purposes:

Similarly, the Pennsylvania Federal Voters under UOCAVA Guidance provides:

(The PA guidance defines “Federal Voter” as “U.S. Citizens residing overseas who are entitled to vote for federal offices under the UOCAVA.”)

The Pennsylvania Voter ID Guide further provides, with respect to Voter ID requirements for absentee voting:

Further compelling confirmation that proof of citizenship is not being provided for UOCAVA voters either is this passage from the 2024-25 Federal Voter Assistance Guide in the Arizona state specific instructions (at pg. 40):

(In Arizona, those lacking proof of citizenship are not allowed to vote in Arizona State elections, however, they can register to vote in Arizona’s federal elections.  I wrote about this issue previously.)

As you see, these voters are offered the opportunity to register to vote in federal elections without providing any proof of citizenship or identification at all.

Remember the folks who never resided in the USA?  States enforce their own rules in this regard and are not required to accept voter registrations from Americans overseas who never lived in the USA.  A review of the 2024-25 Federal Voter Assistance Guide confirms this.  The Federal Guide section for Louisiana, at page 166, confirms non-military overseas voters who never lived in Louisiana are not eligible to vote in Louisiana:

The rule in Michigan, for instance, for the same type of voter is different (see pg. 203):

Pennsylvania, according to the Federal Voter Assistance Guide, has the same rule as Louisiana for the never-lived-in-the-USA overseas voter (see pg. 332):

But, as noted above, Pennsylvania does not require any identification from these voters, so how would any elections officials in Pennsylvania know if the person submitting an application ever actually lived in the state or not?

If these overseas voters are not required to produce proof of citizenship, are not required to provide proof of their former residence in America and are not required to produce valid identification, what is to stop a NON-CITIZEN from casting one of these ballots?  The answer is: nothing at all, other than the promise they make on the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA) that they are eligible.  Here is the relevant part of the FPCA:

(They “swear or affirm” they are citizens by signing the form.  That is the protection the people of this Country have from abuse of this system.)

The potential for outright fraud with these ballots is substantial.  Consider the number of Americans living overseas.  The Federal Voting Assistance Program estimates as of 2022 there were 2.8 million voting age eligible citizens living abroad (though only approximately 3.4% cast ballots in the 2022 midterm elections).  In August 2024, Democrats announced a modest investment in a program targeting overseas voters ($300,000.00).  Democrats see this as a readily available, and relatively unused, pool of voters.  

The RNC was Asleep at the Wheel Again

What is being done to combat the problems with UOCAVA?  Recently, legal challenges were filed in several States challenging the misuse of the law.  Lawsuits were filed by the RNC in Michigan and North Carolina in September and October 2024, respectively, and by a group of Republican Congressional candidates in Pennsylvania at the end of September challenging different aspects of those States’ use of the law.  The RNC suits challenged Michigan and North Carolina allowing people who never resided there to register under UOCAVA.  Only the Pennsylvania lawsuit directly challenges allowing the overseas voters to register without providing any identification.

These late efforts to challenge some of the UOCAVA registration policies in these States face long odds to say the least, as these types of challenges usually must be filed much earlier.  Already, the Michigan lawsuit was dismissed (the court found it was filed too late), while the judge in the North Carolina case denied the emergency relief requested.  Why legal challenges were not filed earlier is anyone’s guess.  As is so often the case, the RNC is playing a too-little-too-late game of “catchup.”

The End Result

The bottom line is the potential does exist for Democrats (or anyone else) to abuse this law and the lawsuits aimed at curbing the potential abuses are not likely to get anywhere. The question will be how many illegitimate overseas ballots could the Democrats harvest?  That is anyone’s guess.  What little data is available, however, shows modest numbers of overseas ballots requested for the election.  The lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania indicates as of September 30, 2024, only 25,000 overseas ballots had already been sent out by the State of Pennsylvania.  Likewise in Georgia, Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger stated in an interview on October 22, 2024 that 21,075 “military and overseas ballots” had been requested there.  Those are not massive numbers, but time will tell what the totals turn out to be.

The good news is most of the UOCAVA votes cast this year will be valid votes from patriotic Americans.  Additionally, Republicans traditionally do well with US military voters, including those overseas, so a fair measure of the votes will be for Donald Trump. Meanwhile, stateside, Trump supporters and conservatives generally need to be sure to vote and to drag every like-minded person with you to vote.  That is the best we can do to win this election.

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