The Ultimate Swing State

When the pundits talk about swing states they forget about the fact that there are many voters who live outside the United States. Some are in the military and vote via absentee ballots. Others are Americans who choose to live overseas either because of their employment or for personal reasons.

One such group of Americans live in Israel, and with their numbers they can change the election in a number of swing states.

Approximately half of some 42,000 registered US voters living in Israel are voting in swing states such as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and could have an effect on the turnouts of those elections, according to Shimon Greenspan, director of the nonpartisan Vote From Israel organization, which helps Americans living in Israel to register and cast their absentee ballots.

"If the election is close, as it was in the past two [presidential] elections, then the deciding votes could be coming from Israel," he said.

According to the organization, Israel has the third-largest group of American voters abroad, behind Canada and Britain.

While the largest number of registered US voters in Israel come from New York or New Jersey, two states heavily in the Democratic camp according to polls, the next two states are the key battlegrounds of Ohio and Florida. Several thousand votes will likely be going to those swing states from Israel.

Furthermore, the significance of the votes from Israel could be magnified because they will come well before the November 4 election. Their choices, to be reported next week in an Israel-based exit poll commissioned by Vote From Israel, could influence American Jews in the United States, believes Greenspan.

This could slightly help Republican hopeful John McCain if an August poll by KEEVOON Research, Strategy and Communications remains accurate. That poll, which surveyed Israelis generally and not American voters in the country, gave the Arizona senator some 38 percent support, compared to 31% for Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

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In Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania these overseas votes just might swing these states to John McCain.

It would be an interesting event if on November 4th Barack Hussein Obama discovers that he lost the Presidency due to Americans living in Israel. And it would be poetic justice upon him.