Everyone has kind of laughed it off but there’s actually now an official investigation by multiple organizations into why my US election ballot hasn’t been released from US customs in a month without any explanation.
My Illinois vote doesn’t matter much but someone needs to know.
@hacks4pancakes it matters enough to block it
@ChickenPwny I’m not sure there’s that much thought into me individually
@hacks4pancakes you and the tens of thousands of others
@ChickenPwny that’s the more significant concern
@hacks4pancakes @ChickenPwny For Illinois I think it's unlikely there are enough overseas voters to matter.
Which is not to say it's not important, just that if it's not incompetence by USPS or the Customs folks it's incompetence by the would-be GOP election-interferers.
Some of these last elections whole states won by 11k votes
@ChickenPwny @hacks4pancakes Harris won Illinois in 2024 by about 600k votes. There were no other statewide elections in IL that year, I think.
There were only about 250k overseas voters in 2024 (out of about 2.2M eligible, but that's a different problem), and of course they weren't all from Illinois and not all overseas Illinois votes were for Harris, so even if they were all blocked it wouldn't have changed that result.
Delaying or discarding overseas votes is a real and serious concern, but it's about the basic rights guaranteed to US citizens no matter where they live, not about specific partisan results.
@oclsc @hacks4pancakes you seem to be validating that the votes trump is suppressing illegally are enough to swing Georgia and a lot of other states. You are cherry picking and ignoring the data sets as whole
@oclsc @hacks4pancakes what about the 49 other states? You seem focused on Illinois. Like to a level that ignores the other 49 states. A lot of elections of been won narrowly. Not just a few, so saying votes don't matter ignores how votes matter at a large enough scale to suppress. Done enough times and in enough ways can augment the elections results. Trump basically walked us through his election scheme.
Trump is clearly using Elon resources to scheme a model to win elections by cheating because Republicans lack morals
@ChickenPwny @hacks4pancakes Not at all. What USPS and Customs are doing is abhorrent and unlawful, whether done through malice or incompetence.
But I'm numerate enough not to argue that blocking even all Illinois voters would tilt any statewide races to the GOP, and don't think we should waste time pretending it does or might. We should focus on the basic issue: the federal government is forbidden by the constitution from interfering with elections in any way, even if they fail to change the outcome.
Trump's famous request than Georgia find 11780 votes for him would be disgusting and wrong even were his number too small.
I have been an overseas US voter (though not in IL) for 36 years. I've thought about this a lot.
@ChickenPwny @hacks4pancakes If you're wanting to vote, but have left US territory, then doesn't that give just a wee hint on how you see the world and might vote?
I'm not eligible to vote in NZ's upcoming election (haven't been back within timeframe) but in past elections it was so easy. Download PDF voting paper, complete it, upload a scan/photo. On polling day the uploads are printed out and counted along with the postal votes. Much easier than heading into local state election authority and doing in person overseas vote.
@vk4tdi "Doesn't that give just a wee hint on how you see the world and might vote?" - absolutely. This is why targeting postal votes is a sure bet for administrations that know they won't be favoured. @ChickenPwny @hacks4pancakes
@tokyo_0 for the US, a ton of overseas votes are military or military-affiliated. Probably far more than people who left the US for political reasons, even in this administration.
@standev You don't think even they might have a different perspective compared to troops back home? Maybe not all of them, but some of them?
@tokyo_0 sure. Probably a lot of them, but if the administration wanted to disenfranchise someone it’s probably not men in their early 20s with no college degree (the demographic average of the US military)
@standev That is true, but it's easy, and it'd take out a substantial number of voters who are not in that group.
@tokyo_0 yes, but if it hits their preferred demographic more they may not want to do it. CBP being shit at the customs job in an environment of all of the dollars going to immigration and border enforcement points toward normal incompetence vs deliberate voter targeting.
Totally unrelated to the election, two weeks ago I had a letter (with tracking) go through the same USPS sorting center four times before they finally sent it to me. This administration sucks at competent government function.
@standev I think their "preferred demographic" is U.S. voters that haven't seen beyond the information environment they're immersed in, not the men and women who have and who know they'll be on the sharp end when things go wrong.
I've also never had items of post as disrupted as I have with postal votes, and a lot of people have that experience.
You've set out your perspective and you're within your rights to see things however you do but I'm within my rights to see things according to my perspective, too. We see this differently.
@vk4tdi @ChickenPwny @hacks4pancakes No, it doesn't. Some people emigrate from the US because they want to get out of the place. Others move abroad to follow their best job prospects (or their spouse's), or because their company asked them to go work in an overseas branch, or because they're self-employed and that's where their customers are.
Soldiers stationed abroad are overseas voters too.
It's not even true that every leftie who votes from abroad went there for political reasons. I didn't.
@hacks4pancakes Every vote matters.
@hacks4pancakes it matters enough because bus that it's your vote!
@hacks4pancakes It matters just as much as anyone's vote. It bloody matters.
@Remittancegirl it doesn’t statistically because I live in a populated place in a blue state. Electoral college.
@hacks4pancakes You found organizations who will investigate? I haven't been able to vote since moving abroad, every election for a different reason. "Lost" ballots, ballot envelope arrives without a ballot form, 'corrupted' PDF ballot, ballot challenged when it arrived by mail, registration mysteriously purged and then pre-registration not processed until after the deadline for that election in spite of being made in good time. Years and years of this shit. Who did you find who gives a shit?
@Linza voterprotection@votefromabroad.org will contact everyone and their uncle to open cases very fast
@hacks4pancakes Thanks!
@Linza I’m shocked too. A lot of volunteers are working incredibly hard. At least ten people have been helping and investigating.
@hacks4pancakes @Linza I wonder if this is the kind of thing my retired mother (who has claimed there's nothing she can do about our untenable political situation) can get involved with.
@hacks4pancakes @Linza this is super helpful. My ballot has been stuck in Chicago customs for a week..
@Linza @hacks4pancakes I've voted in Alabama every two years since I left in 2018, and have never had any of these problems. I am pleasantly surprised each time it all works out fine. This year we have electronic ballots so there's fewer possible things that could go wrong (or "go wrong").
@mwt @hacks4pancakes bippity boppity blocked
Glad people are looking into this.
@hacks4pancakes My daughter has had her ballots “lost” twice while attending uni in another state.
@christopherbrown @hacks4pancakes just flew.my oldest home last weekend to vote. The previous ballots are sent out but have never made it there
@ATLeagle @hacks4pancakes We have considered this but HI to TX is a bit much for us. 😮💨
@christopherbrown @hacks4pancakes ya. Thats far. We used miles and picked horrible times to keep it cheap
@ATLeagle @christopherbrown @hacks4pancakes
I had planned to drive to my son’s school and bring he and his friend back to vote in 2020, then their school closed down so they were home for the elections anyway.
Good for you! I’m glad you were able to do that for your kid.
@hacks4pancakes that's fucked up
@hacks4pancakes De Oppresso Liber
Oct 23, 2026, 9:48 PM@hacks4pancakes
The fuck?
Well that's some fucking bullshit right there.
Oct 23, 2026, 10:26 PM@hacks4pancakes shout out to the state of Nevada! voted online last week no issues. got an email two days later the county has my absentee ballot :)
@xyz @hacks4pancakes I sent my marked ballot to New Jersey several weeks ago, by e-mail, and had a confirmation of receipt the next day. FAX is an option too. (In either case one must include a signed waiver of the right to a secret ballot, because there's no way to keep the ballot itself sealed away from election workers when they check you off the voters' list.)
When you vote from abroad by e-mail or FAX to New Jersey, you're supposed to send hardcopy of the ballot and waiver by post as well. I don't know what the rules are about how early that must arrive. If I'd thought of it I'd have used a tracked service this time. (I've been doing this for decades--not all of it by e-mail--and in the past deliberate ballot-blocking at the border wasn't a thing.)
@hacks4pancakes I am relieved that at least there is some investigation.
I wonder how many other voters are affected.
@hacks4pancakes if the #USA was a #demicracy, it would protect it's #elections like #Germany…
@hacks4pancakes Last time I did send letter to United States. It was in custom for about three or four days. It was just pictures that I was giving a person in United States. This sounds very intentional what the customs are doing with your vote. I doubt that this is just happening to you.
@jonfr600 Agreed on all counts.
@hacks4pancakes I suggest writing a Full Disclosure and putting it on pastebin or the like. I'd want to see the full context.
Oct 24, 2026, 4:22 AM@hacks4pancakes For any US citizen abroad who hasn't gotten their paper ballot! If you filed a Federal Postcard Application (and are an "overseas voter" instead of a regular "absentee voter" -- which is the same category as someone who's going on vacation in Bali on election day) then you can file a Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot (FWAB). See https://www.votefromabroad.org/faqs/fwab-what-is-backup-ballot
If your ballot arrives and you send it in by the deadline, then they will throw away the FWAB. If your regular ballot doesn't arrive in time, they will count the FWAB.
Please repost!
Also, VoteFromAbroad.org will help you regardless of what your voting question (or partisanship) is! See https://www.votefromabroad.org/faqs
Oct 25, 2026, 1:28 PM@ducky @hacks4pancakes Thank you! I still haven’t received my ballot and was assuming I wouldn’t get to vote. Will get this off on Monday.
@hacks4pancakes
Hey I think I had a similar thing happen to me! Said it was sent by "STATE-MAIL" over a month ago but I never received it. They want me to use an electronic ballot. I don't really trust it, but there is little chance of the physical ballot showing up in time to be sent back so I don't have much of a choice. How did you confirm it was held by customs?
@nikiforovas_revenge I sent it with tracking and delivery confirmation
@hacks4pancakes I had something like this with my postal vote for the UK 2019 general election. It was released from customs quite quickly but then was passed back and forth between the national sorting hub and the Coventry depot three times. I had to raise hell and high water to get it delivered, and while I was told it was received and counted, who ever really knows?
(Glad I posted it with tracking, or not only would I not know but I very much doubt it would have reached its destination!)
@hacks4pancakes I’m so glad you have help. This is madness.