Only U.S. citizens can vote for the next American president. However, Charlottesville’s foreign guests and legal resident aliens have done what they could to influence the outcome before sitting on the sidelines on November 4.
Tanya Omeltchenko and her husband received green cards after six years in the United States. She asks, “Why is it that living, working, paying taxes, and being part of the community, we are left out for five years between getting a green card and applying for citizenship, unable to impact the political process which will touch our lives no less than others?” Omeltchenko’s frustrated by not having the vote, a privilege she considers the last and “highest” of citizenship. However, she followed the debates, got an Obama bumper sticker, and tried “to dissuade our Russian friends who are Republicans” from backing McCain.
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Barin Kayaoglu, a Turkish graduate student, and Tanya Omeltchenko, who has a U.S. green card, both worked to elect Obama, despite not being able to vote. |
In contrast, Barin Kayaoglu, a Turkish graduate student at UVA, doesn’t “mind not voting at all.” He does mind that Palin could become president should McCain be elected and not finish his term. Palin’s experience in Alaska, Kayaoglu emphasizes, “does not qualify her to become the most powerful person in the world.” Turkey especially has complex relations to the Middle East, Europe and America. Hence, Kayaoglu volunteered to help the Obama campaign with voter registration before October 6.
Another foreigner, Victoria Barr, came to Charlottesville solely to campaign for Obama. The 244-page U.S. election law forbids “a foreign national, directly or indirectly, to make a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value” to a political candidate, party, or action committee. However, the law explicitly allows donations of “volunteer services.” Barr, from Oxford, England, finished a degree in September; her new job starts in January. “I thought, When else would I have a month free to work on a campaign in the United States?” She considered other battleground states like Ohio and Colorado but decided travel would be much easier on the East Coast. She’s been staying with a local family since October 16 and will return to England a week after the election. For the most part, Barr’s been organizing in the background. “Having someone with a British accent go door-to-door might,” she concedes, “reinforce the stereotype of Obama and world socialism.”
Where are the foreigners for McCain? When I asked that question, the McCain campaign put me through to their regional office in Fairfax. The woman said, “We don’t have a count, but we do have exchange students. In Crystal City, we have a British brother and sister and another student.” If McCain has foreign help in Charlottesville, it’s receded further into the background.
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