US Embassy preparing for proxy voting

Last night the United States Presidential debate between seventy-two year old John McCain and forty-seven year old Barack Obama was watched all over the world because as the adage says when America sneezes we catch a cold. The pundits said the senior Republican was at his best but the polls said it was the young democrat who won the debate by a far margin. On November fourth, the U.S. will elect either the maverick war hero or the first African American as their president. According to David Maurice Jones, the Voting Assistance Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Belmopan, Americans living abroad, can vote in the elections and the Embassy is preparing for the process.

Voice of: David Maurice Jones, Voting Assistance Officer, U.S. Embassy
“Hopefully, they’ve already requested an absentee ballot from whatever state they last resided in and if they have done that and they still have not received their ballot in Belize, then we have what’s call a federal write in absentee ballot which they can actually come to the agency and get and complete and then can actually mail the ballot back for them. If they can’t come to the embassy there’s a website they can go to and it’s www.fvap.gov and they can actually download what’s called the federal write in absentee ballot; the F.W.A.B.. They can actually download it and they can fill it out by hand and some states allow them to actually fax or email back that form as their vote, most don’t but some states allow that and the website will tell them if their state allows it or not. If they don’t then they have to actually mail that and they should mail it in a way that it’s tracked or they can bring it to the embassy and we will mail it for them.”

Jose Sanchez
“Have you had a lot of people calling the embassy for assistance?”

David Maurice Jones
“We’ve had a lot of people calling in the last week or so, especially as we get closer to the election.”

There are many Americans living in the Belize who will want to vote in the November elections, and there are many more Belizeans who live in the United States who are also eligible to vote in US elections.