Vote from Abroad Italy volunteer speaks to The Matthew about the increase of student registrations for the U.S. 2024 elections.

Interview

By Ava Votto | Newsreporter

Study abroad students struggle to navigate voting from abroad after the recent influx in students voting since the 2022 midterm election. Students said they had difficulties receiving their ballots and returning them.  

“I emailed Miami Day County 3 times, and I never received my ballot in the mail,” said Florencia Ureta, a first-year Northeastern student from Miami majoring in International Business. “Because of this, I couldn’t vote from abroad.”

“I never found out if my ballot was received, which was frustrating, and figuring out how to exactly mail my ballot was a little confusing, so I had to talk to my town clerk office to get more details,” said Ashley Brown, a first-year Northeastern student from Miami majoring in Business.  

Vote From Abroad Italy registered almost 2,000 students, which is probably 2 and a half times more than 2022 registrations. 

The vote/registration ballot request for 2022 was approximately 650 students in Italy, keeping in mind the fact that this was a midterm election when not as many students participated.

Not only did Vote from Abroad Italy increase the number of schools that it visited on campus between 2022 and this year, but also noted an increase in the number of students interested in registering to vote. Volunteers visited John Cabot University, Notre Dame, Catholic University, American University of Rome, Temple, University of California, Loyala, Kansas State, and Arizona State.

Kelly Feenan, a Vote from Abroad Italy volunteer, said that the election offices in the United States were probably overwhelmed with the number of overseas ballot requests, which can explain why students who requested their overseas ballot did not receive it.

“It is actually kind of good news in a way, but [the election offices] can’t cope,” said Feenan.  

In order to have a smooth process voting from abroad “you have to be more organized” as a student in a foreign country, says Feenan, especially with a language barrier, it can be challenging. Feenan stressed that time management is a big factor.

“This year I have to say that students were on fire, it was really really heartening.” No matter what campus we were on, there were lines out the door to get registered,” said Feenan.  

This year was exceptional regarding the number of study abroad students coming to Italy, with an estimated 30,000 American students coming into study abroad up and down the entire country of Italy, according to Feenan.   

With the increased number of students coming to study abroad there came an increase in the number of struggles and problems that students faced when filling out a vote from abroad.  

The first to note that is important is that voting from abroad is much different than voting from home, according to Feenan.  

Students have this idea that people vote in November, but to vote from abroad you really have to get organized and get planning because, in half the states, you have to return the ballot by postal mail, so you really have to stay on top of it and get that ballot back, said Feenan.  

Another factor that is important, is that overseas voters are protected by a federal law called UOCAVA, which protects the right of overseas voters to vote in all federal elections, and this includes people who live here [in Rome], serve in the military, go to school here, parents who are US citizens but don’t live [in the United States], said Feenan.  

With this special protection, we get special privileges, because it takes so long for our ballots to get back.

So one of them is that voters get ballots by email. Ballots are received 45 days before the election, which gives time to get ballots back. Voters also have the protection of the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB), which is backup ballot– a privilege that normal voting doesn’t have this privilege.

Northeastern University has its own voters coalition that works to help provide students with support and resources when it comes to voting in all the different elections.  

The Northeastern Votes Coalition worked to help the Northeastern students that were going to be studying abroad for their first semester by sending out an email with the steps that students can take if they are abroad and would like to vote. They not only sent the email to students, but were at the pre-departure orientation.

“Our staff set up tables there all four days that PDO was happening and then multiple times we met and trained all of the Nuin and Global scholars staff about the vote from abroad process, they saw the email that went out, we tried to train all of them to support students who were abroad,” said Hillary Sullivan, Director of Community Service and Civic Engagement at Northeastern. 

According to ABC news, over 25.6 million Americans returned a mail ballot. Over 65 million Americans, including military members abroad, requested an absentee ballot according to data from Election Lab at the University of Florida. 

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