Politics is a favourite sport on the streets of Hagatna, where voters are preparing for the US elections.
Billboards adorn every street corner and conversations are dominated by candidates and their policies. But when Guamanians go to the polls on 3 November and mark down their preference for president, their “votes” won’t count.
Despite being American citizens, an anomaly in US law means the residents of the island, which lies in the Pacific Ocean 8,000 miles from Washington, have no say as to who runs their country.
They vote for a local legislature, a governor, and a delegate to the US House of Representatives – a delegate who cannot vote – but their choice for president, marked on the same ballot, carries no weight.
Guam’s is a straw poll: a non-binding four-yearly exercise that serves merely as an early barometer for how the rest of the nation will vote.
Guam residents are among the 4 million disenfranchised Americans living in US territories who can’t vote for president. And being left out of the election stings.
“I am deeply unhappy that as a US citizen formerly residing on the mainland, I have to give up my voting rights for president simply by moving to another part of the US,” James Hofman, a corporate lawyer who moved to Guam from California in 2006, told The Guardian.
Guam, “where America’s day begins” – as the island’s slogan goes – is 14 hours ahead of Washington, DC.
“It might have some symbolic value, but until there is a direct nexus between our political will and some reciprocal action and engagement by DC it’s not very meaningful,” Hofman said of the straw poll.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
