U.S. expats in Canada staff phone banks to find would-be voters,
Phone bank mentions no candidates, but volunteers feel Trump is ‘very scary’
An activist group hopes to help defeat Donald Trump in the upcoming U.S. presidential election with a secret weapon: American expatriates living in Canada.
Avaaz, an international progressive network, held a phone-bank event Monday in Toronto to encourage eligible voters living north of the border to submit their voter registration forms on time. In many American states, Tuesday is the deadline to register to vote.
Avaaz estimates there are one million U.S. citizens living in Canada and eight million worldwide.
“Americans living abroad have the ability to be the secret swing state in this election,” said Avaaz global cam- paigner Andrew Nazdin. “If they turn out and vote, there’s no reason why they can’t turn major states across the U.S.”
Although the roughly 40 volunteers made no mention of specific candidates in their phone calls on Monday, the organization feels a strong expat voter turnout could be key to electing Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
“When we look at the feelings of Americans living abroad, we see that they are broadly progressive,” Nazdin said. “They voted overwhelmingly for Hillary and Bernie in the primaries, they’ve donated more to Democrats than Republicans in the last three elections. These are progressive people and when they turn out to vote, progressives get into office.”
Many of the volunteers who spent Thanksgiving Monday making calls said they were concerned about the election’s global effect.
“When we look at the feelings of Americans living abroad, we see that they are broadly progressive.” ANDREW NAZDIN AVAAZ GLOBAL CAMPAIGNER
“Whoever runs the U.S., it impacts the world whether we like it or not,” said Rana Khan, 57, who moved from India to Canada in 2008. “Historically, Americans outside America, they don’t really vote. This time we’re trying to make sure it’s a sizable number and we can maybe affect the swing vote.”
May Moore of Democrats Abroad, a partisan group whose members were also involved in the phone bank, said she doesn’t understand how so many Americans remain committed to voting for Trump despite his constant scandals and in- cendiary statements.
“I don’t know how women can vote for this man,” said the 73-year-old, a longtime Toronto resident originally from Pennsylvania. “It just shows, the same thing with Bernie, that there are people that are very disgruntled.”
Helen Pach Goldstein said she took part in Monday’s phone bank because she’s “scared s---less.”
“Why? He’s a misogynist, he’s a pig, he’s a liar. He’s, in my opinion, a sociopath, if not a psychopath. I find him very scary,” said Pach Goldstein, a Canadian with two daughters who live in California.
“I’ve asked them, ‘If Trump wins, what are you going to do?’ And they just shrugged and they said ‘Things will stay the same,’ ” Goldstein said. “They don’t get that it won’t.”
Nazdin called Trump a “global threat” that will make people around the world less safe. “He’s shown us throughout the election that he is a racist, he’s a xenophobe and we had confirmation of that . . . during the debate and the tapes that have been released,” Nazdin said. “He shouldn’t go anywhere near the White House.”
Many Canadians, such as 52-yearold Stephen Traub, were busy making calls to upward of 50 expatriates on Monday despite being ineligible to vote in the U.S. themselves. Traub said it’s impossible to ignore the situation unfolding south of the border.
“As I think (Pierre) Trudeau once said, we’re sleeping with an elephant, so what happens south of the border impacts Canada too,” Traub said.
“We’d just really hate to see our neighbours take such a giant step backwards by electing someone like Trump.”
Pach Goldstein said she’d do anything she can to help defeat Trump.
“I don’t believe that the Americans really deserve this. I believe that they deserve better,” she said.
“He has to be stopped.”