In DKU’s 11-year history, there has never been an organized effort to help American citizens living in China abroad vote.
In the 2024 presidential election, this will no longer be the case. This election cycle, student-led efforts, and campus administrative offices have been instrumental in helping students cast their ballots ahead of election day on Nov. 5.
Dawn Sun, DKU International Student Services senior coordinator and consulate representative, said this marked “the first time” students coordinated a ballot collection effort in DKU’s 11-year history.
Despite the effort, mailing, state requirements and registration difficulties made the process cumbersome, at times.
At DKU, 49% of the international student body are American citizens. To help them vote abroad, the DKU Office of International Relations has been collecting student ballots and delivering them to the U.S. Consulate General in Shanghai for mailing overseas. The office first emailed American students Sept. 12 regarding ballot collection, announcing that students could drop off their ballots to the Administrative Building on campus by Sept. 19 to be included in a Sept. 23 delivery to the consulate.
DKU students hosted a voter registration drive to help students navigate hurdles in the voter registration process.
Junior Kyaira Boughton led the state and absentee ballot registration efforts.
Boughton found that students from Kentucky struggled with absentee voter registration because of strict state requirements. She called specific state voter registration offices to help students successfully register.
“Most people were already registered to vote in their state, they just needed help with the overseas voter process,” Boughton said.
In addition, a national holiday shuts down China’s postal service from Oct. 1 to Oct. 7, further complicating the mail-in ballot process.
“The reason why they’re submitting them now instead of a little bit closer to the election is because they’re trying to beat the [Golden Week] national holiday,” Boughton said. “Because once that happens, mail is going to slow down a lot.”
Junior Solana Torres said that state and local elections — in addition to the federal election — are influential, and if she “can help someone take an action to make their vote matter in these races,” she will. Torres helped Boughton in the voter registration efforts.
In an email from a Shanghai consulate representative to The LilyPad, the representative described the role of U.S. embassies and consulates in supporting national elections from overseas.
“For many Americans in China, and especially students, this may be the first time they are voting from overseas,” the representative wrote in an email on September 26. “It is important to us that we provide all the information and resources needed to make every vote count.”
The consulate representative also wrote that the Shanghai consulate worked with universities in the area to pick up and mail-in absentee ballots from American students, but DKU was not on their list during the last election and the consulate was “glad to see the interest” from the University.
Similarly, although ISS said it had not initially planned to assist in this process, it was willing to get in touch with the consulate to organize an agreement.
