What 2020 Revealed about Overseas Americans: Elections in a Pandemic Year

Abstract

The pandemic and election year of 2020 revealed both the vulnerability and the potential power of overseas Americans (US citizen migrants), once again emphasising their differential inclusion in the United States. Providing votes that put President Biden over the top in both Georgia and Arizona, and forcing the run-off election for Senator Ossoff in Georgia, overseas votes have never been more powerful. Yet at the same time, lack of universal health care in the US was the key reason that US citizens residing overseas did not respond to the US Government’s injunction to ‘Return Home NOW’ in March 2020 (data from small opt-in survey). The differential inclusion of overseas Americans with respect to political engagement is known: voting in federal elections as individuals in one of 50 states, they form a diasporic block in one election only: the Democrats Abroad Presidential Primary. While they do not constitute, in the eyes of the United States population or government, a diaspora, they lobby and advocate on common issues of concern, including the requirement to file federal tax returns. Structurally, the American federal political system does not allow overseas Americans to constitute a single constituency, but even so, they have been able to make their impact. In this unusual year of 2020 where so much campaigning and GOTV (get out the vote) activities moved online, diasporic voters were thus on equal virtual footing with those based in the United States, even as waves of the pandemic moved around the world.