When Salma Ibrahim, a third-year student at the University of British Columbia went to her local Canada Post office to mail her absentee ballot, the post office worker suggested an upcharge to hasten the delivery of her vote.
“She could tell I was nervous about it going through in time,” Ibrahim said. “The mail lady told me, ‘The USPS is really slow, are you sure you don’t want it to go faster?’ And I said sure and paid $25 for it.”
Ibrahim, who voted for Democratic party candidate Joe Biden in California, is one of many registered Democrat students in Canada who have faced the challenges of voting abroad in the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
These students, alongside over 500,000 eligible American voters living in Canada, have become increasingly influential in the presidential election. In 2016, there were over 600,000 eligible voters, yet only 33,000 submitted their ballot.
Certain indicators in the 2020 election, however, suggest greater participation than four years ago. The non-partisan website, votefromabroad.org, is seeing triple its traffic from 2016—up to about one million users.
For Democrats, these numbers are especially encouraging when paired with other statistics. The organization Democrats Abroad has seen a 35 per cent increase in membership in 2020, and a 90 per cent increase in membership since 2016.
Concerns over mail-in ballots
The U.S Embassy in Ottawa recommends voters fill out the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA), which guarantees overseas voters receive their ballots at least 45 days before the election. The ballots are then distributed and can be returned electronically, by fax or mail.
However, Rachel Alper, a first-year McGill University student and member of the school’s Democrats Abroad club, said the challenges of voting abroad lie in the details regarding what renders a ballot legitimate.
Alper noticed her friends struggled with printing the ballots on properly-sized paper and securing an appropriate envelope. All of these small things to keep track of, she said, made her concerned about a lower Democratic turnout.
“It does worry me for people who get deterred by how many steps there are to getting the ballot,” Alper said. “I’m very into politics, so I’m willing to spend hours calling local elections offices, but I understand not everyone has the time.”
Students also shared concerns about their votes being disqualified due to technicalities.
Grace Goldberg, a second-year student at Huron University College who is voting for Biden in Virginia, highlighted how her ballot required a witness signature that matched state records and had to be folded in a certain fashion.
“If I screw up even one rule, my ballot gets thrown out, and therefore my vote will get thrown out,” Goldberg said. “That would be really upsetting.”
With the election just days away, most states are no longer accepting mail-in ballots—meaning all absentees from Canada must have already cast their votes in order for them to be counted.
Despite these voting challenges, many Democrat students have resolved to submit their ballots in an election that many view as crucial to prevent the re-election of the Trump administration.
Daniel Miller, a fourth-year student at McGill and a voter in New York, said he believes Biden can heal the growing polarization and bring an end to the partisanship that Miller says has defined Trump’s presidency.
“I do believe that a country with Joe Biden as president would have less toxic politics in the future,” Miller said. “The rhetoric of this president, in particular, has been very poisoning … It affects how we talk about policies and how we debate policies.”
Canadian experts concerned about Trump re-election
The concerns from Democrats surrounding Trump’s conduct are shared by experts in Canada. Matthew Lebo is a professor at Western University who specializes in American politics. He said he has doubts about the survival of American democracy if Trump is re-elected.
“Over the course of his presidency, [Trump] has undermined democratic norms in the United States quite a bit,” Lebo said referring to instances like Trump signalling that if he loses the election, he won’t accept the results.
“It’s increasingly difficult to see how American democracy could survive four more years of slowing removing these important norms,” Lebo said.
Similarly, Aaron Ettinger, a professor at Carleton University who studies American foreign policy post 9/11, believes the presidential race is ultimately a choice between competence versus incompetence.
Ettinger points to Trump’s alienation of close allies and his bullish rhetoric on China’s responsibility for COVID-19 as examples of an administration too focused on the present to realize the long-term implications of its actions.
“When [Biden] says this is a battle for the soul of America, I think he’s right on that one,” Ettinger said. “But in a more pragmatic sense and not a metaphysical sense. This is about basic competence.”
U.S. election’s impacts on Canada
Experts have also pointed out the election will impact Canada.
Stephen Azzi is a professor at Carleton who focuses on Canada-U.S. relations. To Azzi, a Trump re-election would further chill Canada’s relationship with the United States.
“Anti-American sentiment is at an all-time high in Canada,” Azzi said. “The U.S president tends to personify the United States in the eyes of Canadians.”
Azzi points to a Pew Research Centre study which shows only 35 per cent of Canadians hold a favourable view of the United States in 2020, the lowest percentage Pew has ever recorded.
At the same time, only 20 per cent of Canadians believe Trump will do what is right regarding global affairs, according to the same study.
Democratic students in Canada also recognize the international implications of the presidency, which informs their voting perspective. Goldberg, who has lived in Canada since she was six, sees her vote as a factor that will affect her life no matter where she is, due to the U.S.’s global socio-economic influence.
“Take something like climate change or even COVID,” Goldberg said. “Just because you’re not living in the United States, Canada regardless will be affected by that political leader.”
Featured image by Spencer Colby.
