Donald Trump’s attack on foreign voters is wrong and dangerous

I am researching racist and xenophobic statements. I am also an American citizen and have voted abroad since 1996 (first in the UK and now in Canada).

This puts me in a particularly good position to explain why Donald Trump’s Truth Social post about overseas voters in late September and Republican efforts to undermine those voters are factually incorrect and politically dangerous.

The current law granting Americans abroad the right to vote in federal elections is the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, signed by Ronald Reagan, a Republican president.

The federal program to help American citizens vote while they are abroad is overseen by the Department of Defense — which makes sense given that many of them are members of the U.S. military. All of this should give pause to anyone who thinks that allowing foreign citizens to vote is some kind of left-wing conspiracy.

Complex process

It’s also not easy to vote abroad. Each state has its own process for verifying citizenship after it receives the registration and application form, and each has its own rules that voters must follow in order for their ballots to be counted.

My own state, New Jersey, is relatively simple: I can email my registration/application form, receive my ballot by email, and return it by email. But I also have to remember to send in the paper version of my ballot, otherwise my vote won’t count.

For me it’s easy, whether I’m from Canada or formerly the UK. However, it is much more difficult for American citizens who live in places where there is no reliable postal service and who often have to use expensive courier services to fulfill their duties as citizens.

My husband’s state is New York. He may send his election application by email, but must also send a paper version of the application. And the ballot itself comes with an extensive set of envelope templates that must be folded precisely – and it must arrive within a strict deadline, regardless of where it is mailed from.

He is a former graphic designer and can easily carry out this task. But imagine trying this while suffering from arthritis or vision problems – especially if the self-printed version only contains tiny text. In short: it is not easy to vote abroad.

So why use inflammatory language to pretend that it is easy to generate many thousands of fraudulent votes abroad? One explanation would be to sow doubt about the election results. Anything that can create uncertainty and slow down the counting process can be exploited to allow Trump and his allies to falsely declare him the winner on November 5th.

Trump’s campaign team has made no secret of its plan to go this route.

Language suggesting that American citizens abroad are not real Americans also fits into a larger pattern that is stoking divisions — and drawing ever-tightening boundaries around who counts as “real” Americans. This is a classic fascist power move that results in a clearly defined “we” who are worthy of moral consideration, as opposed to “them” who are not.

Disenfranchisement of citizens abroad

Importantly, the movement against foreign voters is not just limited to a social media post. There are lawsuits in several states aimed at disenfranchising American citizens abroad. These are citizens who may have made enormous efforts to fulfill their duties by collecting and mailing ballots, often at significant personal cost and facing significant hurdles.

Trump and his allies are working hard to prevent Americans abroad from exercising their most basic citizenship rights. When Trump uses language accusing foreign voters of fraud and foreign interference, it suggests that we are not real Americans.

There is a big problem with this. As mentioned above, a large proportion of American citizens abroad are members of the US armed forces. Efforts to disenfranchise Americans abroad are also efforts to disenfranchise the military.

“Fig leaf” language

That’s why Trump’s claim on Truth Social that Democrats want to “dilute the TRUE voice of our beautiful military” makes no sense. This is especially true considering it is coming from someone who is attacking the very law that allows military members to vote from abroad, including voting for him if they are so inclined.

That’s what I call a fig leaf – an additional figure of speech that provides just a bit of cover for saying something else that is much less acceptable. To someone unfamiliar with foreign elections, the claim suggests that Trump somehow supports the military.

Trump’s “diluting the vote” rhetoric also plays into the deeply racist “Great Replacement Theory.” This theory suggests that Democrats and other shadow forces (often portrayed as Jewish) plan to replace white Americans with foreigners, in part to secure electoral victory.

Voting abroad seems to be a niche issue. But foreign citizens could make all the difference in a close election. The attack on foreign elections is part of a much larger pattern of destructive proposals from Trump about who is a real American and who is not.