I'm sure the Republican Party has a similar site, but if American citizens living in Switzerland had absolutely no representation in Washington and couldn't vote, Democrats wouldn't be trying so hard to court them:

http://www.democratsabroad.org/group/Switzerland

http://www.democratsabroad.org/node/9658

No, they have no representation in congress.

They can only for president, nothing else.

Tom

not quite. if you retain a residence in the US, you can of course vote in any election relevant to your location. if you have no residence in the US, you vote in the state where you last resided and generally you vote in federal elections...president, senate, house of representatives. it is possible to invalidate your vote if you vote for more than that in theory. i guess if you are a US citizen and never lived in the US, you can vote only for president. the system is a bit whacked in that respect, and expatriate citizens do need more clear representation.

as for constituent services... i think it might depend on the representative and the situation. my sense from dealing with these people when we lived in north carolina is that they are happy for our vote, but i don't know if they give a crap about us as constituents, especially now that we aren't residents.

as for the benefits of being a US citizen...i'm mulling it over. thing is, i doubt i will return to the US to live, and i haven't lived here long enough to be a swiss citizen. i guess some of us are see citizenship as more an accident of birth than a matter of conviction. at any rate, there is nothing wrong with disagreeing and speaking out against the tax system... lots of people in the US think the system is crap as well. or have we lost the freedom to disagree?

it's also about following the money too, to be slightly cynical

Eddie, to give you an idea how uninterested many of our politicians are in expat issues, take a look at my senator's website:

"Due to the high volume of correspondence, only Illinois residents will receive a direct reply. If you are not from Illinois, I appreciate your understanding and thank you for your comments."

http://durbin.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contact


Bottom line, expat voters are largely invisible. While there are millions of us, we are dispersed across all states, we don't have a lobby, nor do we tend to vote as a block. We simply don't hit the radar, we are easily ignored.

And we are low-hanging fruit when it comes to the 'Who can we tax without losing votes?' question.

I fully agree with the comment, but doubt Congress will allow it to alter in the near future. In the meantime, we’ll struggle to find information if a change in our situation occurs. After negotiating the double speak and convoluted terminology, we discover there are still no directions on how to complete the returns. I would be OK if I needed to compute my foreign source net capital gain using the excess of my foreign source net long term gain and my foreign source net short term capital loss. But I don’t. I only want to know how to declare a pension if I live abroad. Any guesses on what the instructions for the upcoming Form 8938 will be like?


I suppose it’s easy to be cynical, but there are too many organisations who decide to do a survey when avoiding a difficult subject. Points to ACA for at least making the survey visible. It could have been buried on the IRS.gov International site where it would never be found.

Citizenship isn't all about taking from your country now is it?
So the amount of taxes one pays should determine the amount of representation?

The IRS sent me a survey form in the mail.

Wrong, Americans abroad are allowed to vote in federal elections, which includes Congress.

If an American citizen has never lived in the States, some states allow you register to vote in the county where your parents last lived in the USA.

The ACA lobbies for US expats. Don't you think that even people living in Illinois feel they have no representation. So what are the main expat issues that you are concerned about? Besides taxes? Aren't all citizens concerned about taxes?. Do you think it's fair to citizens living in the US, that expats can claim a income exclusion on their taxes? How would you allocate your taxes to make it more expat friendly. Less defense spent internally in the US, and more money spent overseas? You complain, but what would you do about it?
Some more info, not a Republican but found this :http://www.republicansabroad.org/lat...s%20amweek.php
http://www.republicansabroad.org/lat...pat%20news.htm

Seems the republicans abroad are better organized for expat issues then the Democrats abroad. So one course of action is to join Democrats abroad and push them to lobby for expat issues, and not just get out the vote. Or you can give up your US citizenship and be a quitter. Are you a quitter? I'm not.

And the first time I tried to vote from overseas, I was told I couldn't. That because I was not in the military, I wasn't eligible. I highly doubt my vote was even counted.

FYI, from my stint as an election judge:

In the precinct where I served, standard proceedure was that absentee ballots* were counted in but set aside unopened. These were not opened unless the in-person votes were running so close that the total of absentee ballots could influence the results.

So... unless things differ in other precincts/counties/states, it is indeed likely that your oversees vote wasn't counted.


This was many years ago, proceedures may have changed since then.


*Absentee includes all mail-in ballots, not only oversees.

I think that's still accurate. I remember the last Bush election where they called Ohio, and it was close, and then it was mentioned that the absentee ballots would be counted "later".

I was disgusted, realized my vote frankly didn't count and didn't vote again.

You were told wrong information, it has gotten better, and yes every vote counts and is counted

So you don't vote..... and you still complain ..... ??????????????????????????????

Yes. I have no voice there, voting or not. Useless exercise in a place that I don't care about. And I also believe one shouldn't vote unless they fully understand the issues, etc. I don't understand the issues there to the extent I should when voting. To vote when you don't understand is far more irresponsible.

I don't vote. I don't use their services. Why am I taxed again?

You do sound very ill -informed in general. You have no interest in US foreign policy? in US economic policy? Do you live on the moon? So you don't care about the US. and the US has no affect on the global economy now does it? But , don't live there so why care.Will you refuse your Social security payments when you retire?, since you don't live there and have no representation, why should you receive it? Your argument about being informed overseas, may have held some water before, but with the instant media and communication we have now, it's a very weak one.

So those who don't vote shouldn't be taxed? Your position gets more bizarre with each post.

I am far from ill-informed. I simply realize that I cannot change things with an overseas vote. I'm a realist.

As for your assertion that I my position gets more bizarre with each post, I'm countering your exceedingly bizarre positions that you throw at me.

Quite frankly, I'm done. Be happy to be monitored no matter where you live. I don't care. Most Americans abroad (excluding military) do care, don't like it and don't think it is fair.

I'm done with you.