Absentee ballots are prepared to be mailed at the Wake County Board of Elections on Sept. 17 in Wilmington, N.C.Allison Joyce/Getty Images
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A screenshot of a voter outreach website run by Democrats Abroad spread widely online after it was shared on X and included in a Gateway Pundit article. In both cases, the image was used to make the false claim that the outreach site allows users to “bypass the ID portion of the online registration process” for U.S. citizens living overseas.
The posts were attempting to cast doubt on the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), which provides the legal basis for U.S. service members and other American citizens living abroad to vote. UOCAVA has been legally challenged by Republican groups in some states, and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has made a false claim about the program.
Unable to match posted screenshot
The screenshot posted online is of an information pop-up on Vote From Abroad. It has been annotated to highlight a section that says most states will accept voter registration even if a voter does not have a Social Security Number (SSN) or state ID card.
Annotated screenshot from the Gateway Pundit highlighting sections about ID requirements to vote.
The Globe was unable to find a page on Vote From Abroad that was a match for the annotated screenshot. The Globe did encounter a similar information panel, but it didn’t include the wording in the screenshot. (The screenshot says, “Most states will accept the form without a SSN or state identification card.”) It’s unclear if the site has changed or if the screenshot was manipulated.
Screenshot of Vote From Abroad showing an information pop-up about identification requirements.
Vote From Abroad asks a user for personal information, including name and address. It uses these details to fill in sections of a Federal Post Card Application (FPCA). The FPCA allows people to apply to register to vote, request an absentee ballot or update contact information with their local election office.
The FPCA generated by Vote From Abroad is otherwise the same as an empty one available through the non-partisan Federal Voting Assistance Program.
It is against U.S. federal law for non-citizens to vote in a federal election. The section to sign an FPCA says making a false affirmation is considered perjury. Anyone who makes a false declaration could be fined, imprisoned or deported. Non-citizens who register to vote can also lose the ability to become U.S. citizens.
U.S. states vary in how they handle voters without typical forms of identification. For instance, a voter in Michigan without an SSN, driver’s licence or state ID may need to provide other forms of identification, such as another form of valid photo ID, a paycheque stub, a utility bill, a bank statement or a government document with their name and address.
Screenshot of the area to sign a Federal Post Card Application.Federal Voting Assistance Program
Claims target the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act
UOCAVA has been a target of misleading claims that overseas voting allows potential fraud.
The Military Times covered the issue on Oct. 3:
While UOCAVA ensures the rights of overseas and military voters to cast their ballots, voter eligibility is determined by thousands of local election officials across the country who handle UOCAVA voter ballot requests and ballots separately.”
A soldier with a home of record in Hennepin County, Minnesota, for example, must contact the Hennepin County election office to register and request a ballot. A sailor with a home of record in Cobb County, Georgia, must contact the Cobb County election officer to register and request a ballot.
As such, experts in the field say, any unified effort to steal or inflate the UOCAVA vote would be essentially impossible, given all the election offices involved.”
Military Times
Mr. Trump on Sept. 23 claimed on Truth Social that “[Democrats] are going to use UOCAVA to get ballots, a program that emails ballots overseas without any citizenship check or verification of identity, whatsoever.”
In debunking this, CNN reported:
These special ballots are only sent to registered voters who request them, and states require people to verify their identity when registering.
David Becker, founder and executive director of the non-partisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, who regularly advises state and local election officials from both parties, blasted Trump on social media for “actively spreading false information about a bipartisan program.”
“Military and overseas ballots have gone out to registered, verified voters (as required by law) and they are secure,” Becker wrote the day after Trump’s claim. “I can tell you election officials of both parties take great pride in giving military and overseas voters a secure voice in our election, and it’s unfortunate to see a candidate spread lies about that process.”
CNN
Non-citizen voting exceedingly rare
Cases of non-citizens voting are statistically rare, and they have not historically occurred in numbers that would affect the outcome of any race. The Brennan Center for Justice, which advocates for voting rights, surveyed local election officials in 42 jurisdictions with high immigrant populations after the 2016 election. It found only 30 cases of suspected non-citizens voting, out of 23.5 million votes cast, or 0.0001 per cent.
Some states use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program to verify whether voters have been naturalized or acquired U.S. citizenship. Some states have other specific requirements. Arizona requires proof of citizenship through driver’s licences issued after Oct. 1, 1996, or documents such as a birth or naturalization certificates. Many states will also assign IDs for voting purposes.
The Democratic National Committee is spending US$300,000 to pay for voter registration drives and spread information about how to vote from overseas. DNC officials said there are more than 1.6 million Americans from the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin living overseas.
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