Previous Story
Application of UOCAVA in the CNMI
|
Posted on Sep 24 2011
On the application of the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, or UOCAVA, in the Northern Mariana Islands, the Republican Party of the Northern Mariana Islands Association, through its chairman, Juan Nekai Babauta, issued the following statement:
“When the UOCAVA was enacted into law in 1986, it requires that states and territories allow certain groups of citizens to register and vote absentee in elections for federal offices.this includes U.S. citizens living outside the United States.”
“A distinction was made in the UOCAVA statute that specifically says that this law does not apply to U.S. states and territories. However, because the law was written before the CNMI became a Commonwealth, the CNMI is not named or specifically mentioned in the statute; therefore it was not included in the definition of “state”. The statute is Public Law 99-410. It defines “state” to mean the state of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, and American Samoa.”
“So, for example, if a person is from California or any of the 50 states and is now living in the CNMI, that person can contact his or her home state’s election administration office to receive information on how that state facilitates compliance with UOCAVA and be sent an absentee ballot.”
“Each state has its own election laws and therefore each will have slightly different ways in which it send its overseas voters their ballots, etc.”
