Why does iVote Israel still exist?

When iVoteIsrael was launched in March 2012 as a bipartisan, not-for-profit effort aiming to maximize the number of American citizens living in Israel voting in presidential and congressional elections by absentee balloting, it was perceived as having a true aim of unseating Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election.

According to iVoteIsrael statistics, 85 percent of absentee voters in Israel cast ballots for Republican candidate Mitt Romney and 14% for Obama in that election.

Although iVoteIsrael founder Aron Shaviv’s company withstood an audit by the Internal Revenue Service, which determined that iVoteIsrael did meet the non-partisan standards of a 501c4 organization, Shaviv did not hide, in retrospect, that unseating Obama was one of the campaign’s goals.

“We didn’t need to be partisan because we knew, based on polling, that Israelis would vote overwhelmingly for Romney,” Shaviv said. “We earnestly encouraged people to vote, and they did.”

So, now that Obama is not running for reelection and the Democratic and

which also varies by state, is earlier than the ballot-request deadline. Voters can check if they are registered at HeadCount.org.

In New York, the voter registration deadline is October 14, while the deadline for requesting a ballot is November 1. Ballots must be postmarked by November 7 and received no later than November 23.

For California voters, the voter registration deadline is October 24, while the deadline for requesting a ballot is November 1. Ballots must be postmarked or faxed by November 8 and received no later than November 11.

Voters can save on postage by dropping off their election material at the US Embassy or at one of iVote Israel’s dropbox locations, which will be announced in the coming weeks.

According to Eitan Charnoff, the National Director of iVote Israel – an organization coordinating a voter registration campaign – voters should make sure to send in their paperwork over the next month to receive their ballots on time. “I encourage everybody to start registering today, at the very latest the first week of September,” he said.

Anyone can visit the user-friendly websites of the Overseas Vote Foundation or iVote Israel, both of which provide a simple step-by-step questionnaire to fill out the absentee-ballot request form. Applications are based on the voter’s last area of residence in the United States, or if the applicant has never lived in the US, they are based on their parents’ last place of residence.

Once the form is completed, it must be printed, signed and mailed to your local election office with a self-addressed stamped envelope included. Some states, such as California and Florida, allow for faxing or emailing applications to speed the process. But this must be followed by a mailed hard copy.

If applying online sounds like a headache, potential voters can also contact iVote Israel for assistance. The US Embassy also maintains a dedicated email account, VoteTelAviv@state.gov, from which any American citizen can receive a response on inquiries regarding overseas voting.

According to an iVote Israel election poll in the 2012 presidential election, 80,000 Americans in Israel voted out of a pool of 160,000 eligible voters. Of these voters, 85 percent voted for Mitt Romney, while 14% chose President Barak Obama.

According to Charnoff, US citizens in Israel can have an effect on the upcoming elections.

“Americans voting from Israel absolutely can have an impact,” he said. “Nobody knows what the outcome will be, and there is enough of a voting block representing key swing state, like New York and Florida, to swing election results.” •