In 1969, it was Richard Nixon vs Hubert Humphrey. I was 21 in 1968 and in my last year of college when I voted in that – my first – presidential election.
A few weeks ago, I cast my 15th presidential vote by mail-in ballot from my current home in Virginia. I am proud to say I have never missed an election in 56 years, a period during which I have lived in seven different states, one foreign country and one territory.
Even as an American citizen residing in the Federated States of Micronesia, I voted by absentee ballot from Yap during the 2016 and 2020 federal elections.
As a former resident of New York State, I had the right to vote thanks to the federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act or UOCAVA, “which mandates that all 50 states and the District of Columbia permit their former residents who move to either a foreign country or the Northern Mariana Islands to continue to vote in that state.”
The only national election I did not participate in over the years was the midterms in 2022 after moving to Guam the prior year. Although I had the right to vote via New York State, I was no longer directly invested in the outcome and felt insufficiently informed to cast my vote. But, as a Guam resident, I voted in the 2022 Guam elections.
In October 2021, the Connecticut Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights published an “advisory memorandum” stating that in the 2020 presidential election, “3.5 million Americans were denied the fundamental right to vote for our nation’s president: the citizens of U.S. territories – 98 percent of whom are racial or ethnic minorities.”
“Both the Democratic and Republican National Committees permit these citizens to participate in the nomination of their candidates for president and vice president,” the report continues. “Further, residents of U.S. territories are able to vote for nonvoting delegates within the U.S. House. But, for most citizens of the United States who choose to live in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, or American Samoa, their participation ends there. Based solely on place of residence, Americans who live in the territories are denied voting representation in either house of Congress, even though Congress possesses plenary authority over local territorial matters.”
Appearing before the committee, Neil Weare, a Guam native and president and founder of Equally American, a non-profit organization committed to achieving equal rights for Americans living in U.S. territories, testified, “An often-overlooked way in which citizens of the U.S., primarily those from traditionally marginalized communities, are denied the right to vote is through the deprivation of the right to vote to residents of U.S. territories.”
Weare informed the committee that the “territories are denied full enjoyment of the right to vote – despite paying nearly $4 billion in federal taxes, providing high rates of military recruits, and having a population equivalent to that of the five smallest U.S. states combined.”
However, Weare reported, “virtually all residents of these five territories are systematically disenfranchised.”
While states have the option to pass their own laws to permit former residents who move to the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Guam, or American Samoa to continue to vote by absentee ballot, most of the states have not done so, and instead have only enacted laws implementing the mandatory provisions of the UOCAVA.
This raised a question for me: Could native residents of the territories who move to the mainland states vote in presidential elections?
I went online and opened a chat box with a representative of usa.gov, the government's official web portal. After a few minutes of research, she replied yes, citizens of U.S. territories can vote in presidential elections when they are living in one of the 50 states.
The U.S. acquired the five territories by various means, agreeing to grant the citizens of those islands the rights of citizenship equal to mine—with the exception of one of the most basic rights, the right to vote in federal elections unless they reside on the mainland.
“It doesn't feel very good when the federal government says you're American, but not quite the same as other Americans, just a little bit different.” Weare said during a CNN interview in 2020.
In the current election where the race appears to be neck-and-neck with the basic tenets of democracy and the constitution at stake, the 3.5 million Americans of voting age who live on territorial islands could make a significant difference.
But appallingly, they continue to face discrimination similar to that of other U.S. citizens of color living in one of the 50 states who are also minorities with family histories of helping to build this nation stretching back hundreds of years, and, in the case of Native Americans, thousands of years.
I feel only shame in acknowledging my privilege. That’s why I cast my ballots for candidates who represent my personal beliefs and fundamental rights, including the right of all U.S. citizens to participate equally in the democratic process. Guam is fortunate to have Neil Weare actively speaking out and working toward an equal union. More of us must do the same.
Joyce McClure is a former senior marketing executive and former Peace Corps volunteer in Yap. Transitioning to freelance writing, she moved to Guam in 2021 and recently relocated back to the mainland. Send feedback to joycemcc62@yahoo.com
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