Opinion: U.S. citizens in Canada could decide the presidency

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An 18-year-old McGill student walks into a bar (no, this isn’t a joke); two years later, I’m mobilizing the up to 1 million U.S. citizens in Canada who can vote in the 2024 U.S. election.

I’ve been passionate about U.S. politics for a while. In 2018, when I was in Grade 8 in Virginia, where I grew up, the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. devastated me.

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I realized it could have just as easily been my school, so I organized a walkout demanding common-sense gun legislation. I also began to understand the importance of elections. My congresswoman, Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock, got an  “A” grade from the National Rifle Association and was heavily funded by gun-related contributions. That summer, I met with her in Washington, D.C., to urge her to support gun reform, but nothing changed.

I then volunteered for Democratic state Sen. Jennifer Wexton’s campaign to unseat Comstock in Congress. I knocked on doors, made phone calls, and even spoke on a gun control panel with Wexton, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords — a mass-shooting survivor — and her husband, now Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly. When Wexton won during the “Blue Wave” in the 2018 midterm elections, I saw first-hand the power of every vote.

Fast forward to McGill, where I stumbled into an informal event at a bar with the Democrats at McGill club and Democrats Abroad, the official Democratic Party arm for the millions of Americans living outside the United States. I learned for the first time about the power of overseas voters. I hadn’t realized that overseas voters represented the margin of victory for the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris ticket in key states like Georgia and Arizona in 2020.

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Inspired by this, I ran for a leadership position. At 18, I was elected executive vice chair of Democrats Abroad Canada, the youngest in its history. Today, I’m helping mobilize one of the largest untapped groups of American voters who can swing elections in all 50 states: Americans living in Canada.

U.S. citizens living in Canada and elsewhere overseas have a federally protected right to vote. Even if you have never lived in the U.S., as long as you hold U.S. citizenship, you can vote. However, there have been relentless attacks on voting rights and the democratic process. Once again, Republicans are laying the groundwork to challenge mail-in and overseas ballots and to deny free and fair election results if they don’t go their way.

Last month, former president Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, his ironically named social media platform, that our efforts to engage overseas Americans are “cheating” and “foreign interference.” This is simply not true. Americans abroad have a federally protected right to vote. It is crucial that overseas Americans request and return their ballots as early as possible to avoid delays or potential challenges. To request an overseas ballot, go to votefromabroad.org before it’s too late.

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Former prime minister Pierre Trudeau famously said that living in Canada next to the United States “is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast … one is affected by every twitch and grunt.” The importance of this election cannot be overstated; its impact will be felt not only by every American but also by Canadians and people around the world.

For Americans, the freedom to love whom they choose and to make decisions about their bodies — and for all of us to live on a planet with clean air and clean water — is on the line. Democracy and basic human decency are on the line. So, if you are a U.S. citizen living in Canada, please vote.

Jacob Wesoky studies political science and international development at McGill University. He is the executive vice-chair of Democrats Abroad Canada and president of Democrats at McGill, the largest college Democrats group outside the United States. 

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