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Youth Vote Overseas: Interview with Clair Whitmer (Part 3)
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How can voters overseas gather more information about the candidates?
Our site is nonpartisan. We don't get involved on any campaign specifics. But we do have a page that points to other sites providing what we believe is unbiased candidate information. In 2008, YVO promoted Vote Gopher, a site created by Harvard students to publish nonpartisan information about the candidates and we'll continue to promote such sites. Some of our strategic allies, like American Citizens Abroad, are the traditional forums for expats to organize politically abroad and we point voters who are looking for that in the right direction. But we ourselves have only one issue for every election: vote.
How can individuals get involve with the Youth Vote Overseas initiative?
Email me today at whitmer@overseasvotefoundation.org ! We also have a Youth Vote Overseas Fan Page on Facebook and we're at ythvoteoverseas on Twitter. We depend heavily on volunteers and our YVO volunteers especially are fantastic at organizing registration drives at their schools and in spreading the word by writing articles for the expat press and the student press. But even just mentions on blogs and Facebook pages and Twitter channels and all of that kind of viral marketing has been a huge source of sustenance for us. Fan up on Facebook, please!
Any additional advice for young travelers or other information you want to add:
Living abroad certainly changes your view of your country. And regardless of the judgments you end up making about the US and its policies and its people, the one thing you can't get away from is that your nationality is more than your passport: it's part of your identity, how you think and respond and view the world, hard-wired. And the one thing that Americans of every political stripe believe in is the ballot: even when we feel cynical about how the electoral process does work, we think voting is how it should work. Voting makes us American, no matter where we are. Lots of people don't really feel that, in a visceral way, until they move overseas. I just hope YVO helps every one of our users feel it before they go home.
For more info:
NextGenJournal: Americans Voting Overseas
AARO: Which American Kids Don't Have the Right to Vote? Ours!
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