Voters ready to weigh in from half a world away

FREIBURG, Germany – In a few weeks, 74-year-old Joanne Dennig will do something she has never before done – vote in an American election.

“I realized that I’ve got to vote,” said Dennig, who left her home in Minnesota and moved to Germany in 1952. With President Bush and his Democratic challenger John Kerry in a dead heat, every vote matters this year, even if it must cross the Atlantic Ocean. Dennig’s paper ballot will travel 5,000 miles from her home in southwest Germany to a courthouse in Ramsey County, Minn., where she has not lived in more than a half-century.

The U.S. State Department estimates there are 200,000 American civilians living in Germany, as well as 50,000 military personnel. Although that number pales in comparison with the 280 million people in the U.S., expatriate voters are increasingly sought-after by Democratic and Republican strategists. For their part, foreign voters say they are energized by a 2000 election that was decided by just a few hundred ballots.

“There has been great interest, not just in Germany, but throughout Europe in this election,” said Colin King, chairman of American Voices Abroad, a nonpartisan group that has registered more than 1,000 new voters across Europe. “Because of the last election, people realize what a difference a few votes can make.”

But, King said, American civilians are also “feeling pressure (to vote) from their European counterparts because the current administration has such a negative reputation.”

It’s unclear how many Americans live abroad – estimates range from 3 million to 10 million – or how many are eligible to vote. Analysts say the expatriate voter turnout is typically much lower than the 50 percent turnout among stateside voters.

Historically, Republicans have dominated the overseas vote, driven by military workers living in foreign countries. Republicans claim Bush beat Al Gore in Florida in 2000 in part because of a 5,700-vote advantage in absentee ballots.

But Democratic organizers say Bush’s support among the military continues to drop as the conflict in Iraq drags on and American soldiers are kept from their families. Republicans deny the claim, saying support has grown in recent months, particularly in the weeks following former President Ronald Reagan’s death.

But in Germany, the military vote doesn’t carry the same weight that it had during the Cold War. U.S. military presence has dwindled since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, when a quarter-million troops were stationed in the former West Germany.

This year, Democrats and Republicans have focused their attention on the civilian voters, flying in prominent speakers to Berlin, hosting rallies in Munich and using the Internet to organize their supporters.

“In the past, we haven’t really engaged civilian voters,” said Henry Nickel, chairman of Republicans Abroad in Germany, a new 527 group, named for a change in the tax code that allow them to operate. “It hasn’t been a priority. A lot of civilian voters just didn’t bother.”

Former Vice President Dan Quayle visited Berlin in April, telling the crowd that the expatriate vote could tip the scales in this fall’s election. Kerry’s sister, Diana, who lived in Berlin as a child, visited the following month, saying her brother would warm chilly U.S. relations with Germany and the rest of Europe.

In Berlin, Democrats targeted the opening of Michael Moore’s movie, “Fahrenheit 9-11,” passing out fliers and seizing the chance to help liberal Americans register. Web sites have sprung up across Europe, the vast majority in opposition to a second Bush term.

At Books in Berlin, a popular English-language bookstore, checkers hand out voter-registration forms to American customers. A sign on the wall reads, “Get out the vote. Use it – your right to vote – or lose it.”

“I’ve had several people come in who have never voted before,” said Dave Solomon, the store’s owner. “Even very apathetic people seem interested.”

Many foreign voters say bureaucratic obstacles create a maze of regulations for overseas voters. By federal law, they must register in the county where they last resided in the U.S., but election laws for expatriates vary from state to state. The Federal Voting Assistance Program, which is run by the U.S. Department of Defense, provides information on its Web site, www.fvap.gov

Voters say registering can be especially difficult for young Americans who have citizenship through a parent but have never lived in the U.S.

Lynn Weber, an English language tutor in Freiburg, said her daughter searched the Web until she found the proper forms. In the last election, neither Weber nor her three children voted. This year, all have registered in Pennsylvania, though none of Weber’s children have lived in the United States.

“It’s a lot of work but this time we’re going to do it,” said Weber, who supports Kerry. “The last election was a very good lesson for us.”

From the beginning, Bush was unpopular here in this liberal southwestern city of 200,000. In a mock election held in 2000, residents resoundingly opposed him, with 80 percent of the voters supporting Democratic candidate Al Gore, according to a local poll.

Bush’s environmental policies – including his crucial decision to back out of the Kyoto Protocols – won few supporters in Freiburg, a city where thousands rely on bikes for transportation and solar panels power the local soccer stadium. The war in Iraq did little to soften his image, experts say.

“People are not hostile toward America, but they are very involved in this election,” said Eva Manske, executive director of the Carl Schurz House, a German-American institute here. “Its not anti-American, but it is a strong opposition to Bush and his policies.”

But American expatriates say they are a lightning rod for criticism of the United States, to the point that some say they feel uncomfortable.

Dennig, who for years led a Freiburg peace group, left the group this year because she disagreed with its political statements opposing U.S. policies.

“There is in Europe a basic feeling of superiority – we have culture, education, history. Look at these Americans in the sticks,” said Dennig, who plans to vote for Kerry. “This is deep-seated.”

But, Dennig said, even after years abroad, “You don’t forget your country. It stays near to your heart.”