Federal legislation was passed in 2002 to improve federal voting procedures and administration. One requirement of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) is that each state must establish a single office to provide information about overseas absentee voting. The law recommends - but does not require - that the single office also handle the actual procedures (accept applications for registration and ballots, send out the ballots and receive voted ballots).

The State of Virginia is currently seeking comments on its state plan for implementing HAVA, with a 2 July 2003 deadline. Virginia voters, overseas groups which represent members including Virginia voters, and people with experience in registering overseas voters are encouraged to write to the State of Virginia encouraging it to have the office, rather than having each of the 56 counties handle voting procedures as well as information. Full information available at: www.sbe.state.VA.us/web_docs2/hava

Hard copy comments can be mailed to:

HAVA Public Comment
State Board of Elections
200 N 9th Street Suite 101
Richmond VA 23219

Note that many states are currently shaping their plans. Check via the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) at www.fvap.gov whether your state for voting also seeks input. This website is also good for those seeking information about voting from abroad.

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In early May, ACA founder, Director Andy Sundberg, spoke before a working group of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe which was looking at "The Links Between Europeans Living Abroad and their Countries of Origin." Sundberg's suggestion for the creation of a new NGO, "The International Association of Organizations of Citizens Abroad," generated considerable interest. Discussion centered on the diverse appreciation and treatment of citizenry abroad by different countries.

For further information on this initiative, contact ACA at: acage@aca.ch

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Representatives of several organizations of overseas Americans (e.g., American Citizens Abroad, Association of Americans Resident Overseas, Federation of American Women's Clubs Overseas) met in Paris on 18 June 2003 to discuss the Census Bureau's plans for test censuses in 2004 and beyond of Americans in individual countries abroad.

A full report on this meeting will appear in the next issue of the ACA News Update.

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Travel literature? Books on Belize, Panama, Iceland and Ireland are available. Advice on aspects of living abroad? Books with the titles Parenting Abroad, EuroDiversity, A Business Guide to Managing Difference, Know-it-all Parents Geneva-Nyon, or Working with the Environment await reviewers. Even historical fiction (Raven Gunnar by long-time ACA member Terry Lacy, is set in 13th century Iceland). Lots of titles on hand -- or suggest others which you have read and feel would be of interest to Americans abroad. By periodically checking the Book Review section on ACA's website, you can checktitles for which we are seeking readers. Reviewers get to keep the reviewed book, and reviews are published online. Contact ACA at:acage@aca.ch for further info.

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Section 911 is out of the emergency room, but it would be premature to say that the provision has been restored to good health.

In mid-May, in the operating theater of the US Senate, the foreign earned income exclusion went under the knife of Senators looking to "trim fat" from the US tax code. Section 911 underwent radical and unexpected surgery, a procedure that nearly snuffed out the exclusion altogether. Thanks to an early tip from ACA's Andy Sundberg, some well-placed friends in Washington, and an outcry from Americans around the world, Section 911 was removed from the operating table and is now on the road to recovery.

Melodramatic? Certainly. But so was the real thing, which many of us in the Section 911 Coalition had the opportunity to witness first-hand.

In the end Section 911 was saved because of a confluence of factors that compelled policymakers in Washington to remove it from consideration. Because "Top Ten" lists are all the rage these days, here is our list of top ten reasons, in no particular order, for Section 911's survival.

#1: Democrats opposed many of the provisions in the Senate and House bills, so it was not difficult to champion Section 911 as well. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle put it this way: "There are tens of thousands of people who work abroad and work with an understanding that they're helping America's economy because of our globalized economic interdependence. This is a huge tax increase on working families all over the world at the very time when we need them, perhaps, even more than ever."

#2: Many Republicans opposed the idea of raising taxes, period. And it was no consolation to them that taxes would be levied on Americans abroad in order to pay for a tax cut at home. No one expressed this view better than Grover Norquist, the conservative Republican who leads Americans for Tax Reform. He chided, "You can't help the economy by taking water out of the bathtub and then putting water back in the bathtub, and say you're filling the bathtub."

#3: The White House had no interest in offending the more than four million Americans abroad. President Bush, who launched his reelection campaign on May 16, told legislators that he wanted Section 911 removed from consideration. It's reasonable to assume that President Bush has not forgotten that it was the votes of overseas Americans who "put him over the top" in the 2000 presidential elections.

#4: Major business groups weighed in, including the National Foreign Trade Council, US Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable, Associated General Contractors of America, National Association of Manufacturers, and others. These organizations sent strong letters to the leadership and tax-writing committees of the Senate and House with this message: Repealing Section 911 would be bad for business and U.S. international competitiveness.

#5: Other friends in high places also weighed in. Bill Archer, former Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, worked the phones at the highest levels. No one has done more for Section 911 in the past two decades than Archer, and he wasn't about to let the US.Senate destroy his legacy to overseas Americans. In the same vein, InterAction, an alliance of more than 150 US-based nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), told Congress: "The proposed repeal would, if enacted, be damaging to the charitable work of our member organizations and that of hundreds of other US-based private voluntary organizations (PVOs)...Without the tax benefits found in Section 911, many workers and their families will simply not be able to afford to remain abroad."

#6: Americans abroad weighed in, including Republicans Abroad, Democrats Abroad, the American citizens groups overseas (including ACA), and American Chambers of Commerce around the world. Unlike past campaigns to save Section 911, which were dependent on letters and faxes, this one was revolutionized by the availability of e-mail. (The Section 911 Coalition, for example, was receiving some 250 emails every day from around the globe.) But nothing beats face-to-face meetings, as the American Business Council of the Gulf Countries can attest. Their annual "Doorknock" was fortuitously scheduled for May 19-23, and the ABCGC quickly retooled to focus all of its energies on saving Section 911.

#7: Section 911 was lumped in with other "revenue raisers" that were unpopular from the outset. In the end, the most significant revenue raisers supported by the US Senate, including the foreign earned income exclusion, were jettisoned.

#8: Overseas Americans won the media war. Coverage of this issue was, for the most part, fair and factual. Very few media bought the Senate Finance Committee's line that Section 911 was nothing more than a boon for Fat Cats abroad (i.e.- a "savings for the highly paid," in the Committee's words). Especially helpful in this regard were the Price Waterhouse and Johns Hopkins reports that the Section 911 Coalition commissioned in 1995. Having vital data at our fingertips played an instrumental role in getting out the facts and, we believe, ultimately convincing the Senate Finance Committee that it would not be worthwhile to "go to the mat" on this issue.

#9: The House Republican leadership drew a line in the sand that they refused to cross. Speaker Dennis Hastert came out against repealing Section 911 early on, as did Majority Leader Tom DeLay, noting, "It's counterproductive to raise taxes on one side while cutting taxes on the other." But no one was more firm in his convictions than Bill Thomas, Chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee. He forcefully rejected the idea of discriminating against Americans based on where they live -- abroad, or at home.

#10: The Section 911 Coalition played a central role in boiling the foreign earned income exclusion down to two elements: US exports, and US jobs. Legislators were interested in the fact that repealing the exclusion would save the US Government some $35 billion over ten years (i.e.- an average of about $3.5 billion annually). But when Members of Congress learned that this "savings" would take place at the expense of billions of dollars worth of US exports, as well as hundreds of thousands of American jobs, they quickly came around.

In short, it was this confluence of factors that enabled friends of Section 911 to move this provision "off the table" almost as quickly as it landed on the table in the first place.

But we may not always be so lucky. Now that the exclusion has been identified as a possible revenue raiser, it may only be a matter of time before Section 911 comes "under the knife" again. Americans abroad may breathe a sigh of relief today, but we need to remain vigilant in the months ahead. Otherwise, Section 911 may once again find itself on the operating table and fighting for its life.

This item contributed by David Hamod, who serves as Executive Director of the Section 911 Coalition, is President of Intercom International Consultants. In that capacity, he works closely with American citizens groups, AmChams, and U.S. business interests around the world. He can be reached in Washington at +1 202 8871887 or hamod@intercom-usa.com.

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