Friday 5 March 2010

Off to Florence for a Glamous Weekend of... meetings...

I'm off within the hour for a weekend trip to Florence Italy. The Democratic Party Committee Abroad's (DPCA for the acronymically inclined. Democrats Abroad in plain English) international meeting is there.

So I've got two days closed into conference rooms with no time set aside to explore one of the most beautiful cities in the world. On the one hand, poo. On the other, hurray! Should be great to see folks again. I'm always amazed by the cross section of folks represented at these Meetings; expats from Israel and Italy, Holland and Hong Kong, India and Indonesia, Afghanistan (yes, really!) and Australia.

Now THAT'S a state party with diversity. Hah.

Will report back after the fact.

In the meantime, if you too are a Democrat abroad (whether or not you are a Democrat Abroad) make sure you do request your absentee ballot for the midterms. We always advise everyone to submit a ballot request, even if they expect to get a ballot from their state. Better safe than sorry!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Your point about the need to request a ballot every election year will be especially relevant when the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act comes into force. One of the downsides to the MOVE Act is that it does away with UOCAVA's requirement that election officials keep your FPCA on file for two general election cycles and now only requires that it be valid for one election cycle. (The argument in favour of this change was that the old UOCAVA provisions often involved wasted resources in sending ballots to overseas voters' old addresses that could be better spend for such purposes as getting ballots sent earlier for those who requested their ballots that year.)

Enjoy Florence! I hope that the representatives of DA Israel and DA Lebanon can get along this time.