Fair enough.
Sorry, I hadn’t realised that this thread was “Should Americans retain voting rights if they live in a foreign country?”
Silly me for having an opinion on the subject. Carry on.
I strongly suspect he could stop and they’d never notice.
You’re free to express your opinion, just as I’m free to express my opinion about your opinion.
Given what some people have sacrificed to gain and retain suffrage in various countries throughout history, disenfranchisement is not something to be proposed lightly no matter what country you’re talking about. Votes are important.
I have dual US/Irish citizenship and have lived here in Ireland for over 4 years now. In 2008, I planned a vacation back home specifically around voting in the US Presidential Election (I flew back to Ireland the day after Election Day). However, I have not voted in any Irish elections since moving here (haven’t even registered to vote). For me, this is because:
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Up until recently, I assumed I’d be moving back to the US at some point in near future, so I’d have a direct concern with US policy.
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I followed US politics much more closely than Irish politics, and have a problem with ignorant voters as a general principle.
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Also as a general principle, I don’t think I should be able to vote in both countries at the same time, even though it may be perfectly legal to do so. It just somehow feels “wrong”, like it would be if I voted twice in a US election prior to moving.
Now, over the last year or so, I’ve changed my outlook such that I’ll probably be staying here in Ireland indefinitely. As such, I’m not sure if I’ll come home to vote in the 2012 Presidential Election. At some point, I’m pretty sure that I’ll start getting more involved with Irish politics and start voting here, but I’ve no idea precisely when. At that time, though, I will probably stop voting in US elections. I strongly doubt that if I’m still in Ireland in 2016 I’ll come back to the US to vote.
So, my roundabout way of answering the OP is a qualified “yes”.
Perhaps, but I think it’d be risky if he ever wants to move “back” to the US.
Perhaps you could reveal your nationality & give your opinion of the laws governing the expat franchise in your country. Which country? Not shown in your profile.
Posters from the UK have expressed their opinions on the UK laws. Your lofty statement seemed to cover all laws in every country.
US citizens retain voting rights here as long as they remain citizens. If they don’t have legal residences here, they can only vote in Federal elections. But there’s no time limit. Alas, we have far too many Americans who’ve never left but don’t bother to vote.
I thought most of the active posters on the boards were aware I was Australian? I’ve certainly mentioned it often enough…
Regardless, my profile lists my location as “QLD, Australia”. I just checked it a moment ago; it’s definitely there. 
Australia’s laws on voting (from here) are that if you are moving overseas permanently (ie, you don’t intend to come back any time in the foreseeable future) or remain overseas for more than six years, you lose your right to vote in Australian elections until such time as you return home. I agree with this policy, although I NZ’s three year limit is more in line with my views on the subject .
It was a statement of my opinion, and my opinion is that if you move overseas for more than a shortish period of time (say, 3 years) you should lose the right to vote in your old country’s elections.
Hereis the wiki article, which is a pretty good discussion of the US citizenship law. If the parent, parents, and grandparents don’t meet certain requirements stipulated in said law, then the child is not a US citizen. If the child does not gain citizenship at birth of another country, then, yes, the child is stateless.
Here is the US State Department page about acquisition of citizenship at birth by a child born abroad.
The law in effect at the time of President Obama’s birth is the one the so-called “Birthers” hang their hat on, ignoring completely the simple fact that the man wasn’t born abroad.
Well, a good thing, in my opinion, that your opinion isn’t taken into account by American law. If the Australian parliament decides to change the voting laws to permit all Australian citizens residing abroad to vote, then you can take up that issue with your MP.
Where I currently reside, South Korea, the government fairly recently changed the election law to permit Korean citizens abroad to vote.
For me it comes down to whether you’re a permanent resident of your new state or just there for a while. My brother was posted to Sweden for eight years by his company, but he was always coming back to Britain at some point.
On the other hand, I’ve been in the US for more than half my life - since I was 14 - and I’m unlikely to move back to Britain barring something really awful happening here (Neo-Nazi President, famine, etc.) so I don’t vote in UK elections. Not that I could, anyway - I’ve never paid UK income tax.
Wow, my first instinct was to assume that they’d be Saudi citizens if their mother is, but this US state department page says
so this could be a problem for that person’s friend 
As for the OP, if you have to pay taxes to your country of birth, you should be able to vote. In countries where this is not the case, 10-15 years sounds pretty reasonable.
Which brings me back to my earlier point that this thread is actually “Everyone Agreeing That Americans Shouldn’t Have To Pay Income Taxes Abroad And Everyone Should Be Able To Vote In Elections No Matter How Tenuous Their Connection To The Country”, and not an actual “Debate” on the subject.
Well, I think we’ve had this debate before, but I don’t see any problem with the US imposing a tax requirement on a citizen who might plan to exercise their right to move “back” at some point. It’s not as though the US is obliged to grant him that right in the first place.
I don’t agree with that. But that’s hardly what this thread is about.
One big problem with your view, Martini, is that the logical extension of your argument would confer the right to vote on non-citizens living, working, and paying taxes in their country of residence. Someone who has been a long-term resident in the country, but is a non-citizen would presumably have more of a right to vote in local elections than a citizen who has been living abroad for a couple of years.
You should absolutely be able to vote in your home country if you reside overseas. Citizenship is what confers the right to vote, not residency. If you’re a citizen, you get to vote in your country’s elections. If you’re not a citizen of your country of residence, you don’t get to vote in their elections.
As it happens, my personal views work well with my living situation. I’m a US citizen who has been living in Japan for close to ten years. I pay local and national taxes in Japan (including hefty contributions to the national retirement plan that I’ll never see again) but I don’t get to vote in local or national elections because I’m not a Japanese citizen, and there’s no way in hell I’d ever want to become one.
I haven’t paid taxes in the US since my second year here, since my income is below the foreign earned income exclusion, but I also haven’t received the benefits of use of most of the US infrastructure supported by taxes, which more or less balances out. In the event that Social Security still exists when I retire, I’ll receive much lower benefits than my peers because of the time I wasn’t making contributions to the fund, so I don’t consider my lack of tax liability in in the US to be a particularly good thing. I don’t get either a short-term or long-term benefit from not having paid US taxes, since I still have to pay taxes here (which are higher than the total US taxes I’d pay, overall) and also lose the money I’ve paid into the entitlement system in Japan without building equity in the US entitlement system.
Living abroad fucks you financially unless you’re making way more money than the average person in your home country, and I sure don’t. For an equivalent job in the US, I’d be making at least 20–30% more, have about half the cost of living, and would expect to have a 401k or other retirement package in addition to SSI.
Even if I were planning on living here indefinitely (and I’m not; I’m planning to move back to the US with my wife in the next two years) I would never willingly give up the right to vote in my home country, nor would I ever vote to disenfranchise expatriate American citizens if I were living in the US. You’d have to strip me of my citizenship and bar me from the country to stop me from considering myself an American, with all the rights and responsibilities of any other American.
Why are you in Japan if you’re not there to make money?
I lived and paid taxes in Australia for two years without being able to vote before I became a citizen. Didn’t bother me in the slightest.
Look at it this way: Should you be able to vote in the city council elections of a city you don’t live in, haven’t lived in for five years, and have no intention of ever returning to? Of course you shouldn’t. I feel the same is true of national elections. And citizenship confers other benefits besides voting- social security and a passport spring readily to mind.
Personally, I don’t feel my vote matters in the slightest. I still vote because of what my ancestors had to go through to achieve that right, but I’m under no illusions as to how much worth my single vote actually has.
Both of my friend’s parents were born in the USA, but they left many years ago (25? 30?) and no longer have a home there - they’ve been in Saudi the whole time. Being born in Saudi does not make you a Saudi citizen.
Care to remind me of where I said that? Or you can apologize for asserting that I said something I did not say.