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Can Puerto Ricans vote as expats? (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 9 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I've heard that the reason Puerto Ricans can't vote is because Puerto Rico isn't a state and it is states that choose the president, not voters. But what about expats living abroad? Do they just get to pick which state gets their vote? If so, couldn't Puerto Ricans do that too?And what about people in DC? Where do their electoral college votes come from?

I'm sure I'm missing something here, I'm just not sure what.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 hours ago

You can vote from overseas in whatever location was your last permanent US residence.
People in DC get to vote for president because a special law was passed giving them electoral votes.

People in Puerto Rico have a US permeant residence that doesn't let them vote for president, so they can't legally vote from a different jurisdiction.
One of the proposals that's come up occasionally is to make a similar law for Puerto Rico as we did for DC, but there's never enough consensus on any plan to go forward, up until relatively recently.