Dems, GOP Target American Voters Abroad

[leftchick]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=694&ncid=716&e=8&u=/ap/20040517/ap_on_el_pr/us_voters_abroad


KLOSTERNEUBURG, Austria - Rubber ducks scribbled with the names of John Kerry (news - web sites) and George W. Bush bob and swirl down a babbling brook in this Vienna suburb.

"Go, John, go!" shouts a group of American expatriates, some using hockey sticks to give the Kerry ducks a helpful slap downstream. Not surprisingly, the Democrat wins by a waterslide.


The Federal Election Commission (news - web sites) wouldn't approve. But the Austrian chapter of Democrats Abroad says the mock race achieved its aim: to awaken the 7,000 Americans in Austria to the approaching U.S. presidential election, and get eligible voters to register.

Mindful of the recount fiasco that put Bush in the White House four years ago, Democrats and Republicans everywhere from Hong Kong to Hungary are aggressively targeting American expatriates, whose absentee ballots could prove decisive in a tight race.