The UK hosts the second largest population of voting-age US citizens outside the United States, but Americans living in the UK vote at very low levels in US elections.

The US government’s Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) estimated that there were 298,268 voting-age US citizens in the UK in 2022, second only to Canada. But FVAP also estimated that only 3.8% of these US citizens in Britain voted in that year’s midterm elections. Why do hundreds of thousands of eligible US voters in the UK not exercise their right to vote, even though US rules for voting abroad are relatively welcoming compared to many other countries?

The UK has recently conducted its own experiment in overseas enfranchisement. In January 2024, Britain abolished the 15-year limit on overseas voting, potentially enfranchising about 2.3 million additional British and eligible Irish citizens living abroad. The UK expanded overseas voting rights deliberately embracing “votes for life”, a policy long practiced in the US to allow all overseas voter-age Americans to vote, regardless of how long they have lived out of the country.

The UK government expanded overseas voting rights, while the Trump administration has sought to restrict mail-in voting, including for overseas Americans. But last week, the US........

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