MEXICO CITY — When John F. Kerry's sister, Diana, passed through Mexico City this week, she came not to visit the pyramids at Teotihuacan or the Frida Kahlo House, but to help register expatriate voters, a key and perhaps decisive source of electoral strength in this year's presidential election.
Motivated in part by Republican claims that ballots from abroad tipped the scales in Florida for George W. Bush in 2000, the Democrats are making a stronger push to register voters in foreign countries this year.
Diana Kerry, a 57-year-old Boston schoolteacher who is working on her brother's campaign, has a central role in the effort.
"I'm here to encourage Americans living in Mexico to vote, to make sure everyone who has the right to vote knows how to exercise it," she said during a reception and absentee registration drive held at a private residence in Mexico City.
Before Mexico, she visited Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany to rally support.
No one knows for sure how many Americans live abroad -- estimates range from 3 million to 7 million -- or how many of them are eligible to vote. Diana Kerry estimated that as many as 3 million potential voters live in foreign countries.
Democrats Abroad, the party's international voter registration wing, is placing a particular emphasis on Mexico, believed to be home to the most U.S. expatriate retirees, workers and students, followed by Canada and the United Kingdom. Estimates of Americans living here vary wildly: the U.S. Embassy places the number at 385,000 and Democrats say it is 1 million.
In an election that could prove a cliffhanger, expatriates represent a key pool to tap into because of their notoriously low participation rate in previous presidential elections -- partly because of the complexities of absentee balloting. Some experts estimate the percentage of eligible U.S. expatriates who voted in the 2000 presidential election was as low as 30%, far less than the overall 51.3% turnout among eligible voters overall.
"With this year's election bound to be close, it's a significant pool," said Jim Brenner, a Kerry campaign operative who was with the candidate's sister in Mexico.
Expatriates that Diana Kerry mixed with at the reception here Thursday included Jeanne Smith, 74, a New York City native and apparel factory owner who has lived in Mexico for four decades but has never filed an absentee ballot.
