It ain’t easy: voting abroad

St. Petersburg, Russia >> Moscow, Russia >> Dubai, UAE >> East Midlands, United Kingdom >> Leipzig, Germany >> Brussels, Belgium >> Cincinnati, OH >> New York, NY >> Washington, DC >> Frederick, MD

A mock-up of my attempts to vote in 2024.

It was a long route to the ballot box.

My ballot’s journey begins on Monday October 21.

In seven days, my vote criss-crossed Eurasia before arriving at the Board of Elections in Frederick, Maryland.

I take voting very seriously.

While it was always relatively easy in Maryland (they even change your polling place automatically when you move) and California (Early Voting made it easy to go wherever, whenever), I was a little more wary of doing so in Texas. Standing in line one time, I was armed with both my driver’s license and passport. I know what these Southern states do, and I was not about to let them disenfranchise me.

Another time I was almost run over by a pick-up truck, but that was largely my fault because I was jaywalking.

Oops.

(And just in case any big-brain libertarians want to chime in about how voting is economically inefficient, riddle me this: why do the rich do it more regularly than the poor and why does America’s Neo-Fascist Republican Party work so hard to prevent people from doing it? Sit down.)

The journey continues on Tuesday, October 22.

Voting from Russia hasn’t quite been a breeze.

In 2016 I dropped my ballot off at the Consulate in St. Petersburg a few weeks before Election Day. Easy. However, this institution closed a year or two later, meaning that getting a ballot back to the US required either sending it to the Embassy in Moscow or directly to your local Board of Elections via snail mail or a courier service.

I managed to send my ballot in 2020 via snail mail, which took maybe 3 weeks to get to New York City and, I guess, a few more days to reach Houston, TX, where I was registered at the time.

On Wednesaday, October 23, it was in Dubai.

This time around, though, I was registered back in Maryland. I was watching my email inbox anxiously as the weeks rolled by. Where was my ballot? It finally came towards the end of September. I printed and signed everything I needed to and sent it to the Embassy in Moscow, following the State Department’s directions:

If your state requires you to return paper voting forms or ballots to local election officials, you can do so free of charge at the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate. Place your ballot in a postage-paid return envelope or in an envelope bearing sufficient domestic U.S. postage, and address them to the relevant local election officials.

Contactless ballot drop-off is available at U.S. Embassy Moscow’s Consular section from 8 A.M. to 12 P.M. When you arrive at the Consular entrance, please inform the guards that you would like to submit a ballot. You may also submit your completed ballots sealed in an envelope with the address of your local election officials to U.S. Embassy Moscow (Attn: American Citizen Services, 8 Bolshoy Devyatinskiy Per. Moscow 121099) through Pony Express or local mail, though please note that local mail can often take several months to arrive at the Embassy, resulting in a late submission of your ballot. Your physical ballot must be received by one month prior to the election in order to allow sufficient time for postal service. While we will send later submissions, we cannot reasonably expect their on-time arrival to your voting district.

You can also return your FPCA or ballot to your local election officials via international mail or professional courier service at your own expense.

Doing a cost comparison, I opted for the local mail to deliver my materials. I had time, having received my ballot in mid-September.

Something seems off about an American ballot going through the UK.

When I went to the local post office, there was no problem: it would take 3 days to arrive in Moscow. Swell — that would be well over a month before Election Day.

I emailed the Embassy to ask about how they would get it.

They said they wouldn’t.

There is nobody sitting outside the Embassy waiting to accept mail. Your courier or local deliveryperson would need to enter into the Embassy entrance to put the ballot inside the ballot box at our main gate, or into our consular entrance during open hours to drop it off with us.

I contacted a friend in Moscow to see if she could deliver it herself, but the post office told her that only someone named on the package could retrieve it. Since my friend wasn’t Citizen Services, that was a no-go.

BUT.

The post office staff told her that a designated person comes from the Embassy each week for just such mail, so she/we would just have to wait.

Some customs issues greeted my package on Friday, October 25.

Later, the Russian Post app said that the package was taken out for delivery but that this was a failure. It would stay in the Moscow post office until the end of the month, when it would be returned to me in St. Petersburg.

I emailed the Embassy about this and they rather curtly replied that they recommended using a courier service. They didn’t dispute that they offered local mail as an option, but added that on their website they recommended using a courier service.

Helpful.

My ballot made it stateside on Saturday, October 26, one week after this process began.

My options were thus:

A) Fly to Moscow and deliver it myself to the embassy (expensive in time and money)

B) Find an international courier to deliver it directly (expensive in money)

C) Don’t vote.

Due to sanctions, international movement of goods and services from Russia is rather limited. Pony Express doesn’t seem to offer service abroad, save to some friendly, neighboring countries; Mailboxes Etc. had worked once before, but its location seems to have vanished.

Then there was DHL, the same service that brought me a letter of invitation back in 2015.

I spent Saturday scampering about the center of St. Petersburg. First, I had to print out a new copy of my ballot. On the way to a DHL office, I realized that I needed to fill it out in black, not blue, ink. So I headed to another copy shop, to print my third ballot. At the back of my mind was the fear that with so many of these floating about that I would be cited by the Trump campaign as one of those rascals that tried to commit voter fraud.

On Sunday, October 27, my ballot arrived close to my hometown.

With the right papers in hand, I was unable to find anywhere to send them. Local map apps sent me to empty corners of the city, bookstore counters, and a shopping center. I tried my luck at the last spot, walking up to a delivery desk for local packages. The young woman working there told me that, on paper, this was in fact a DHL point, but that they didn’t accept items for shipping.

I asked her where a working office was.

She pointed me to one quite a schlep from where we were.

I called a cab and headed over. The worker I met said I needed to make an order online and that we were too close to closing time to worry about it now. I should come back tomorrow.

OK.

On Sunday morning I went to DHL’s website and submitted an order. The website approved and confirmed my order, and directed me back to the same office. I went in the early afternoon. This trip took one bus ride followed by one trolleybus ride. I usually travel by Metro or taxi, so this was a bit of an adventure for me. I made my way to the office, smiling at the same worker I had met the night before.

It was out for delivery on Monday, October 28.

“I made an order,” I said. “I’ve got a number and everything.”

He told me that he’d have a colleague help because he still had no idea what was going on. A young lady from another part of the building came over and peered at the computer screen with him, figuring out, step-by-step, what to do.

The thing is, “DHL” was pasted on the door, and there was a little stand-up plastic sign that explained how to do these transactions. There were directions on the wall, too. But it seemed like I was the first person who ever wanted to ship something through this “partner” of the global logistics firm.

They printed out a bunch of shipping labels, found an official DHL envelope for my documents (an oath that I was in fact the voter I said I was, 3 pages of ballot).

All I had to do was pay.

Oh, right.

Paying.

To vote.

Seems sus.

To be fair, I did have a good day afterward.

The total was just under 12,000 roubles, or almost $125 as of writing. I don’t want to be overdramatic, but this feels not all that different from a poll tax to me. Not only was the local representative of the US government ambiguous and largely unhelpful in its advice but relying on a private organization to deliver my ballot ended up costing me about half-a-week’s wages (don’t do the math, for both our sakes).

Some not-very-academic research on Wikipedia shows that actual poll taxes in the US ranged (in 2023 dollars) from around $30 to $100.

Freedom isn’t free.

When I was finishing my CELTA training back in 2015, one of the roles we were told to prepare for (or at least accept) as Americans abroad was as “ambassadors” for the country. I eagerly accepted this part of the job.

I came to Russia for my own reasons, mostly having to do with my prior experiences here, but at the same time, I was proud to be able to represent the best of America. For all of its flaws (read about them here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), the United States embodies and represents many laudable liberal ideals, notably with respect to individual freedom, free speech, and secular government.

It was delivered to the Board of Elections on Monday the 28th. A good week before Election Day.

That having been said, it’s not a great look when being an American abroad also means navigating bureaucratic mazes to complete the simplest act of civic participation.