By IANS
New Delhi : As Democrats of 22 states in the US get ready to go to polls in primaries on Super Tuesday, they will be joined for the first time by their compatriots settled abroad, with a voting booth to be opened in New Delhi.
A popular seafood restaurant in south Delhi’s Lodhi Colony will be transformed into a polling station, where Democrat members could walk in to cast their votes.
The Democrat primaries are being keenly followed not only in the US but also by other countries due mainly to the fight between former first lady Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama. Its significance is magnified by opinion polls, which show that next American president will be a Democrat.
To an outsider, the US election process looks complicated. In a layperson’s terms, a party primary election conducted in the states is the first process in selecting its nominee to fight for the post of president.
Usually, American citizens abroad can vote by sending in an absentee ballot, but only a small portion of expatriates take the trouble to obtain the ballot paper from their district or county and then send it well ahead of the election.
Therefore, for the first time, Democrats Abroad, recognised as a ‘state’ by the Democratic National Committee, will go to the polls as part of a Global Presidential Primary starting from Feb 5 in nearly 100 countries.
Over the weekend, Carolyn Sauvage-Mar, executive president of Democrats Abroad India, has held two workshops to familiarise 15 volunteers with the intricate rules and regulations of the exercise based on an 80-page document called delegate selection plan.
American Democrats spread all over the world may vote via the Internet, fax, mail or in person at the voting centre. The only condition for being a voter is that they be a registered Democrat and a US citizen.
Further, they will have the chance to vote during four days – Feb 5, 6, 9 and 12 – with the polling in New Delhi to take place for four hours from 4 p.m.
“The idea is that we want people from all over India to have a chance to fly in and cast their vote… We also want our members to be able to come in after work,” said Sauvage-Mar.
At the end of each day of voting, Sauvage-Mar will personally count the vote and inform the results to the international chair of Democrats Abroad in Geneva, Switzerland. “I will also have to physically courier them to Geneva,” she said.
Also, unlike in the US where the results will be announced immediately after counting Tuesday, there will be a long hiatus before results from expatriate ballots are known.
“Since walk-in votes will be only a very small portion of overseas polls, we will wait for all the mailed ballots to reach their destination,” she said. “We will know whom (voters in) India voted for on Feb 22.”
She sees the whole idea of smoothening the process of voting for Americans abroad equivalent to the 19th century battle to allow all sections of society the right to vote.
“I believe that the issue about expatriate votes is in the same line as the struggle that women and blacks had to wage to get their voting rights.”
Working as a consultant with Unicef here, Sauvage-Mar feels that as Americans living abroad they have a greater understanding of the impact of US foreign policy and its reverberations on their country’s reputation – for example, the situation in Iraq.
She pointed out that a quick straw poll among Democrat members in New Delhi found that Clinton had an edge over Obama, mirroring the domestic sentiments in US at that period.
“But, we found that the number one issue for deciding the candidate was overwhelmingly Iraq or foreign policy. I don’t think that is one of the top priorities for voters living in America,” said Sauvage-Mar.