According to the US Constitution, and the Laws governing Citizenship in the USA; if a US Citizen lives abroad and has not renounced his or her United States Citizenship then there is a right to vote. After all, the United States of America [better yet, the Republicans and Democrats who misgovern the United States of America] taxes citizens of the United States of America on the basis of their salaries abroad. If Absentee Ballots were to be removed, the Republicans and Democrats would be behaving like tyrants who practiced taxation without representation. The same hypocrisy that applied to Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua when he did not allow Nicaraguans living abroad to vote but accepted the money from people abroad is the same thing that has been proposed.The people who do not like the idea of absentee ballots are the ones who are afraid of losing their power, their privileges which were ill gained and illegitimate from the beginning. What about those who cannot go out because of illness or a fear of having to go outside? If a person has not been declared incompetent to vote yet prefers the comfort of voting from his or her own house or is bedridden secondary to illness of a physical nature, they have a right to express their preferences and make their vote count. I could still remember when I was studying Medicine in the Dominican Republic how I expressed my vote in 1984. One of my friends went with me and helped me go to the American Embassy in the Dominican Republic in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic where I placed my vote for Ronald Reagan. I never regretted that use of absentee ballot. In fact, there should even be voting via the Internet with a Secure System so as not to have vote tampering. The Elections should also proceed with Twenty First Technology by abolishing Eighteenth Century Gimmicks such as the Electoral College and the Primaries. The powers that dominate the United States of America if they are true to the words of their party such as Democratic and Republican should not be afraid of the will of the people and permit absentee ballots. Unfortunately, there are Democrats and Republicans who have reached the point of being afraid of the will of the people. I challenge the people of the United States of America to say yes to the right of Absentee Ballots and vote out those who want to remove absentee ballots.