1. United States
2. Letter

My children are US citizens. My son will have to register for the draft at age 18. Both my son and my daughter will have to file tax returns for their entire lives, and will have to pay US taxes on any taxable income. But neither of my children will be allowed to vote. They are quite literally subject to taxation without representation. This is because I was born and raised in Arkansas, one of 14 states that do not allow American citizens who have never resided in the USA to register at their US citizen parent’s last address. 36 states have implemented the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), but Arkansas is not one of them. (And there is no remedy for this—my children cannot simply claim to have lived at my old address (as my state representative suggested), as that would be voter fraud, and could potentially give their own children voting rights they are not privy to. It’s complicated.) You can’t do anything federally to mandate that Arkansas and other states ensure UOCAVA protection for their citizens. But you can be a voice for those of us who are still proudly American but who live abroad. And there are so many issues we face (though, as a tiny voting bloc, we are largely neglected). We have onerous tax reporting requirements, we sometimes cannot hold bank accounts—and are not allowed to make certain investments—thanks to FATCA, we include a number of “accidental Americans” who have no ties to the country apart from incidentally being born in the country but nevertheless find it impossible to renounce citizenship, and so much more. I would love to ask you, as a new voice for all Americans, to consider becoming a voice for Americans around the world, not just those who live within US borders. Please consider the issues I have mentioned here, and have your team look at more. We need a voice. Some of us, like my children, have no way of making our own voices heard.