[onli]

You have at least some which on paper are supposed to represent you and your region. Expats don't, and that was the point made in the article.

The general issue of indirect democracy not representing the will of the voters is a fundamental one and not solvable, also goes to far for a discussion like this. Side remark: JFKs Profiles in Courage is a great book on the topic.

[mikeash]

Yes, that was the point made in the article, and it's the point I disagree with. My members of Congress represented me just as much when I lived abroad as they do now. Expats absolutely do have elected officials who are supposed to represent them.

[onli]

> Expats absolutely do have elected officials who are supposed to represent them.

You yourself stated above that they don't?

I got your argumentation as "I never was represented anyway, so not being represented as expat did change nothing". But the difference is that the other americans have representatives that are supposed to act in their interests. Expats have only the afterthought of being american and that one could think about them sometimes, since they vote.

Who are the elected officials who are supposed to represent them? I do not think that there is one, that is not how your system works.

[mikeash]

No, my argument is that expats have representation, because they vote for members of Congress. As an aside, I remarked at how that representation doesn't do a whole lot for any American, living abroad or not.

The elected officials who represent a given expat are those from the district where the expat is registered to vote. For example, when I lived in France, I was still registered to vote in Wisconsin, so I voted for Wisconsin Congressmen, and they are who I would contact if I felt like wasting my time by making my opinion known to legislators.

The article is trying to say that because expats don't have any representatives exclusively for them that they do not have representation at all. I find this to be absurd. Yes, small interest groups have trouble getting action in the legislature, but that's hardly unique to expats, and nobody says that e.g. janitors pay taxes without representation just because there's no Janitor Congressman.