Expatica news

Kerry’s sister rallies US expats in Europe

2 September 2004

AMSTERDAM — Diana Kerry is attending meetings in Germany and the Netherlands this week to help rally support for her older brother, US presidential candidate John Kerry.

She will also officially launch a website in Europe she claims will “revolutionise” the system of registration and absentee ballot requests for the estimated 7.1 million US citizens living abroad.

“Since the last election was decided by only 537 votes, our efforts to rally US citizens around the world to vote and support the Kerry-Edwards ticket are critical to our success,” she has stated.

 Diana Kerry is chair of the group Americans Overseas for Kerry-Edwards (AOK) and is visiting Munich and Amsterdam as part of the AOK’s 100 cities World Tour, a global effort to find US citizens living abroad and register them to vote in the presidential election on 2 November 2004.

Expats who support the Democratic Party are invited to a reception in Munich to meet Diana Kerry on 3 September.

The following day she will officially launch OverseasVote2004.com in Europe. The deadline for US expats to register to vote is 15 September.

The voter registration website was first launched in the US on the eve of the Democratic Party convention in Boston at the end of July.

The site presents the user with a series of questions for his or her last state of residence. The system then generates a form and users are automatically given the address for where it should be sent. The site will even print out a customised envelope.

Organisers say the system significantly reduces the chance of errors in completed forms and subsequently increases the chance of local election officials placing the applicant on the electoral rolls.

On 5 September, Diana Kerry will attend a reception at the Waalse Kerk in Amsterdam at 7pm. 

“This is the most important election of our lifetime. If the 30,000 Americans in the Netherlands are going to vote, they need to register now. The deadline for registration is as early as 15 September in some states,” according to Robert Checkoway, chairman of Democrats Abroad Netherlands.

Diana Kerry has spent most of her live overseas. As a child she attended schools in Berlin and Oslo before going to boarding schools in Switzerland and the US.

She has advanced degrees in education and theatre, the latter from King’s College/RADA in London. She worked as an interpreter at the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972 and subsequently taught in international schools around the world.

For information on Munich events and to register to attend, email [email protected]

Contact [email protected] for information on the Amsterdam meeting.

[Copyright Expatica News 2004]

Subject: German news, Dutch news, US Presidential election