Suppressing the overseas vote

• Record numbers of Americans abroad have registered, but bureaucratic snafus may prevent many from actually voting

Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat is pumped. Two weeks ago, sitting in an internet cafe on Munich's Odeonplatz, the software marketer who crafted a hugely successful voter registration website, pulls up numbers that show a remarkable spike in Americans overseas mobilising to defeat George W Bush. Between her site and another out of Hong Kong, Democrats have registered 140,000 new voters, 40% of them from swing states - and that is just the tip of the iceberg. Americans abroad, roused to a boiling fury by a Bush doctrine that has smeared America's good name across the globe, are looking like the "silent swing vote" in several key battleground states. Overseas registration for both parties is up by 400% over 2000; estimates put the tally of possible civilian votes as high as 2 million. Then the panicked emails start flooding in. Today, less than two weeks before the tightest presidential race in memory, untold thousands of overseas voters still have not received their ballots - and clearly won't be able to get them back in time. [more ]