Saturday, Oct. 31, 2020 | 2 a.m.
Carolyn Wieland has been living and working in Moscow for 26 years, but she remains an American citizen and treasures her right to vote in U.S. elections.
“I love America very much. I vote every darn year,” said Wieland, who cast her ballot by email in Las Vegas.
“This is the most important election — as far as I’m concerned — of my lifetime, and it’s very important to me that my vote be counted,” said Wieland, who voted for Democrat Joe Biden for president.
Wieland is among some 9 million American citizens living abroad who have the right to vote in U.S. elections.
Oliver Kendall, a spokesman for Democrats Abroad, said 6,372 Nevadans voted from outside the United States in 2016.
Voters living outside the U.S. must request an absentee ballot by mail or email, which can be filled out and returned with an electronic signature.
Nineteen states do not allow voters to return their ballots electronically, while the rest allow the use of email or fax. Four states let voters to return ballots through an internet portal: Arizona, Colorado, Missouri and North Dakota.
Wieland said she received confirmation her ballot was received but not that it has been counted.
Wieland said she doesn’t have a “burning desire” to return to the U.S. right now.
“If the U.S. gets its act together and we get someone more reasonable in the White House and they get the health care issue under control … if the U.S. gets that all straightened out, I would consider in my very, very old age moving back,” she said.
Wieland said she wants “the lives of my fellow Americans to be better. I don’t want anybody left behind.”
Briget Mutchler, a Nevadan living in Toronto for nine years, said she has voted in every election since moving to Canada.
It’s important for U.S. expatriates to remain involved in the political process, she said. They might pay more attention to the relationship between the U.S. and the country where they live, she said.
“I feel like an American, but you see the world from a different place once you’ve lived outside of the states,” said Mutchler, who votes in Reno.
This election is particularly important “because I haven’t agreed with what our current president has done to the office of the presidency,” she said.
