During the Royal Sussex Tour, Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan stopped in New Zealand for several days. Their trip was planned specifically to mark the 125th anniversary of Kiwi ladies getting the right to vote, and Meghan gave a lovely speech about feminism and women’s suffrage and all of that. In that post, I wondered aloud if Meghan was planning on voting in today’s midterm election. Before she was a duchess, Meghan was politically active and she even wrote about the civic responsibility to vote. So… did Meghan already send in her absentee ballot or what?
As she powered towards the finishing line of her 16-day tour Down Under last week, Meghan Markle made a passionate speech about women’s right to vote. Now, as America goes to the polls in Tuesday’s crucial midterm elections, has the Duchess of Sussex carried out her right to vote back in the U.S.? Meghan, 37, who is currently going through the years-long process of applying for British citizenship, can still vote in her home country. And her speech last week echoed what she had written on her former lifestyle blog, The Tig, back in November 2016, when the former Suits star spoke out about the importance of voting in a post titled, “Because You Must.”
“The right to vote is something for which blood, sweat, and tears have been shed; the struggle was endless for us to have this liberty,” wrote Meghan, who was filming her legal drama in Toronto at the time.
“I ticked the boxes on my absentee ballot last week, closing my eyes and thinking of my great grandparents who didn’t have this right (and thinking of how it would have changed the lives of my grandparents if they had),” she continued. “So on this day we urge you to exercise said right. Please vote. The fact that we can makes us the lucky ones.”
But she is in a tricky position this time around. Her grandmother-in-law Queen Elizabeth doesn’t vote in elections as she has to be seen to be impartial as head of state – and thus to stay “strictly neutral with respect to political matters,” she is “unable to vote or stand for election,” the royal family’s website states.
Senior members of the royal family under convention usually don’t take up their right to vote. But the duchess’s office at Kensington Palace won’t elaborate on whether she has voted in the U.S.’s midterm elections. “No comment,” is all they would say.
I want to believe that “no comment” means “of course she’s voting, she’s not insane and Donald Trump is a f–ked up fascist.” I understand why the Queen doesn’t vote, and I sort of understand why Prince Charles and Prince William would also skip voting, because they’re the ones immediately in the line of succession. But I think everybody else in the royal family should get to vote. Especially Meghan, since she’s not yet a British citizen and she feels strongly about the American election. Do you think she’s registered to vote at her mom’s house in LA? Hm.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
I would hope so!
Everyone who is entitled to vote should do so.
oh I think she would have. I sent mine back in October. You can get all the forms by email now so no excuse.
Voting is public record. You can look her up on the vote with me app and check out her voting record.
Wait, really? That seems… exploitable.
I’m not a fan of the Vote With Me app. You put in any person’s first and last name, state, and birth year. It pulls up voting affiliation, elections voted in, and address! I feel like there should be a barrier to so easily getting a person’s information.
Wow. It sounds really Big Brotherish… Don’t the US have laws that protect its citizens against such invasions of privacy?
That you voted and party affiliation are matters of public record, but who you voted for is private.
Celebrities, politicians, everyday people— their information is available within the Vote With Me app and all it takes is typing a few characters to access it. It almost seems a violation.
It really bothers me that it’s so easy to look up my voting records, mostly because they include your address. I’d prefer my address be kept private because of some worry about past boyfriends finding me, but NOPE. If you are registered to vote, your address is right online for anyone to find (at least in my state).
It doesn’t say HOW you voted. The records list your voting history in terms of showing up and casting a ballot, as well as party affiliation. It does seem strange, but at least it allows you to ensure that you are registered. The party affiliation makes people vulnerable; they could screen that out, but then individual voters couldn’t check on their status easily for voting in primaries that require party affiliation. Voting in the USA is so complicated and messy.
This year, access to voting history allowed me to track the status of our absentee ballots and make sure they were accepted. If the US did away with its vote-suppressing required registration system, or automatically registered everyone on reaching voting age, then it would be different.
It wouldn’t surprise me if some electronic voting systems did have their actual votes hacked; then they would have to link them to voter ID number and ballot number. I’d say PAPER BALLOTS ONLY and then I think how hard it is to stop the use of flawed and vulnerable digital systems. This is going to be like holding back the tide.
@dietcokehead
Thanks for the info! Getting ready to look some people up now.
I believe celebrities use a business address of some sort. They have people to advise them on keeping their addresses and phone numbers hidden.
I’m absolutely shocked that you can access someone’s address in the US so easily. You can opt out of having your address on the electoral roll in the UK.
I haven’t seen any addresses listed for anyone on the app… I’ve only ever seen the city being listed, presumably because there can be many people with the same name in a given state.
@Beluga – I’ll say – exploitable is too weak a word IMO. The privacy of the voting booth should be sacrosanct, like a doctor’s or lawyer’s office.
One of the things I find most alarming about modern times is the disappearance of boundaries between public and private life.
I get robocalls on my unlisted, unpublished home phone number. I receive phone calls at nine o’clock at night. When I complained to my representative I was told my phone number is public record. Is it not, especially if I pay Verizon every month to make it unlisted/unpublished! The public should get together to make voting information private. I am exhausted with the government playing me for a fool.
It’s not particularly accurate. Examples: looking myself up with my married name does not connect me to any voting done under my maiden. Yet looking me up in the reverse does. However, then there are several missing votes for major elections. I did vote in this, but I was out of the country and voted with a mailed absentee ballot. So if she did vote similarly, it may not show up. Additionally, I voted early by mail this year two weeks ago and that’s also not showing up.
It worked for me 100%. I looked for a couple of celebrities and they came up but not their full address. Either way, it’s public record and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
As someone said above, it’s an easy way for a stalker to find you. I guess you can only stop voting if you’re on the run. You know, it never would have occurred to me that someone could find me through a voting record.
Laura – I finally turned off the ringer on my landline. I was even getting unsolicited faxes at all hours! It got worse when I registered my number with the Do Not Call list, so I think the spamsters were using it as a Do Call list.
I only answer the cell phone if I know who is calling and have authorized them to have my cell number. Everyone else gets their number added to my Wrong Number contact. You can get silent ring tones that you can assign also. I used to have one, but now I just use Crickets for the Wrong Number calls.
I’ve been getting a lot of calls lately that get tossed into the Wrong Number contact. Maybe the increase has been political calls.
I hope so!
American needs saner heads to prevail today – fingers and toes crossed!
America needs the angry and the outraged to prevail today. America needs minorities, refugees, Gold Star families, religions, women, the pre-existing condition folks and decent people who have had enough to prevail today. Fingers crossed .
@Ladty D – the problem is, they’re likely to prevail and retake the House, but the GOP are likely to retain control of the Senate. And what that means is gridlock for the foreseeable future. The best we’ll be able to hope for is stopping bad legislation, but passing new and better legislation will be nearly impossible, including for whoever gets into the Oval Office in 2020. I guess it’s better than nothing, but it’s still not going to solve much.
It’s pretty interesting.
Of all the things Meghan has to give up to be with harry voting didn’t cross my mind.
Me neither. I wouldn’t like that.
She can’t vote when she’s a British citizen but she can vote now. I wouldn’t be surprised if she sent in her absentee ballot while she still can.
I’m pretty sure she can vote even when she is a UK citizen. I dunno if the royal family will prohibit her from voting in the future when she becomes a citizen but the UK recognizes dual citizenship, she will not have to forfeit her US citizenship. This means she does not have to forfeit her voting rights in the US. And I doubt she’ll renounce US citizenship, it would be really stupid of her and a waste of her time as it is not an easy process (not only that but it’s expensive and a few thousand dollars). I obviously want her and Harry to stay together forever but if things didn’t work out, she’d have her US citizenship to fall back on if she ever decided to move away.
As a dual French-American citizen, I am allowed to vote in both country’s elections.
She would not vote from her mum’s house. She would use an absentee ballot – as I did, and mail it in. However, you vote based on where your last known US address is. So, if her last known address is at her mum’s, she’d vote within that district.
At least with the district, that’s how it works for NYKers.
-N
Same. By absentee ballot from Canada, I vote in my last U.S. voting district for all levels of office.
When I lived outside the U.S. I continued to vote absentee as a California resident, but I think overseas voters can also vote on election day at embassies now. Anyone?
I assume she didn’t. Because she is now a member of a foreign government (pregnant with the 7th in line for the throne) and I assume she would have been discouraged from doing so to avoid accusations of political bias on part of the royal family.
I hope she did vote! she is still a US citizen though, and the British RF is not part of the US gov’t so I would really hope that she votes, especially given her speeches about voting rights
But she is a member of a foreign government now in a way. It could be seen as the BRF voicing an opinion on a forgin election and I just feel like there would be strong discouragement.
I guess we have to define what “in a way” means. The Queen is head of state, but how far does the extension of ‘head of state=ness’ extend down the royal line? And I can understand the need to appear impartial in England, but for an American who married into the family and not in the top tier? Seems like a gray area. I hope Meghan voted; she has that right and if she isn’t even an English citizen yet, it would seem even more unfair for her to be deprived of her one opportunity for taking part in the process.
CanadianGirl, considering that Russia (and China) are meddling in our elections, I don’t think Meghan’s (STILL an American citizen!) vote amounts to “Government Tampering” by the British 😊
Jan90067, I was just thinking from an optics standpoint the BRF probably discouraged it. Obviously it isn’t the same as voter tampering and it’s also not the same as a presidential election, where they have to work with the winner regardless. It honestly never occurred to me that she would still vote in the US because she signed up to be part of the BRF and all it means.
Outside of the Queen, none of the other members of the BRF are part of the government. Technically they can all vote except her, but Charles and William likely don’t. In the UK they would be voting for their local MP and not the PM directly so it’s not the same as voting for a president.
I don’t see why she shouldn’t be able to vote. She’s not voting on some kind of reform in Britain, she’s voting on an American election – it’s just not the same thing.
I hope she did. She cannot vote in British elections obviously, but she deserves to have her voice be heard in the USA.
It will be years before she can vote in the UK. I hope she voted in this US election too.
Voting is something I sadly expect she’d have to give up. Royals are not supposedly to be political in the traditional sense, and are representives of the crown above everything. Meghan may be still an American citizen, but a British-royal voting in an election is highly unlikely, even if a non a commonwealth country.
@Eliza I agree, I doubt that she voted. It would have been HIGHLY discouraged by the Firm.
I also doubt she voted but as it’s a matter of public record, we will know one way or the other at some point soon.
I think she could have voted. The way I understand it is a matter of perception vs legality. Sure from an optics standpoint and tradition royals do not vote. But I think legally and technically that only applies to the actual monarch and not every in law and second cousin in the world. Someone pleas chime in if I’m wrong about that. Plus the issue as I see it is voting in British elections. So maybe the optics aren’t good, but Meghan isn’t the monarch and isn’t voting in a British election. Up to and until her renouncing her US citizenship which we don’t know if she’s doing, she’s legally entitled to vote in a US election. I don’t think the British royal family can legally bar her from doing so, nor do I think it would be a good look if they did speaking of optics. I could be wrong about this maybe you do go in a back room and sign away all of your legal citizenship rights upon marriage but somehow I doubt that because people have said she still has to go through all the legal channels anyone else would to have dual or renounce US.
Only the monarch is part of government as head of state. Everyone else including Phillip could vote but they usually don’t. I am also sure at lower levels of the royals there are people voting.
The Luxembourg royal family, even working members, all vote. They publicly walk down to the voting booth and all vote together. According to the official government website –
“As in other countries of the European Union, voting is compulsory act of citizenship. The refusal to vote may be punished by a fine.”
“No Comment” means that she did. The problem with the senior royals voting is that it’s seen as the Queen interfering because they are her representatives. When they get political it reflects on her because they literally speak for the Queen as their job. They would all vote Tory anyway. They’re not exactly going to vote themselves out of a job.
We don’t know that they would vote for the Conservatives. It depends on the election – I can’t imagine any of them voting for Labour under Corbyn but I’m sure at least a few of them would have voted for Tony Blair in ‘97 if they could have done so.
I honestly don’t care if Meghan votes in the US or not. I’d be a bit annoyed if Charles or William voted and really upset if the Queen voted, but I don’t care about the rest of them.
Oh please of course they would vote for the Tories! It’s silly to think otherwise.
LOL whatever, I’m pretty sure that Meghan would vote Democratic and it’s not that big a step to think that Zara or Harry might vote Labour. Or even Lib Dem, if they wanted to be lame.
Labour – not today, surely, given the rank, and I mean rank and foul and open, anti-Semitism of the Labour Party under Corbyn. Labour generally would be a bridge too far for the Royals regardless, yes? Going center-right would probably be a big step for any one of that lot.
Yes, and that’s why I said not Labour under Corbyn, but Tony Blair’s ‘97 brand of Labour (which the Labour Party should bring back if it ever wants to win an election ever again).
Oh not teflon Tony Blair! That man should go away to oblivion.
Not the man himself of course, he should go away, but I think a nice, not too far left type like David Miliband could do very well against May’s Conservatives.
@Tina – thanks for that. I have been trying to follow UK politics a bit and Corbyn is outright for republicanism, and Blair, if the movie “The Queen” was accurate, kind of supported the monarchy. If I were a royal and wanted to hold onto my privileges, I sure wouldn’t vote Labour with him at the head.
@violet, Blair’s views on the monarchy are kind of representative of many people’s in the UK (he was pretty mainstream in general other than his horrendous error with the Iraq war – there’s a reason why he won three general elections, which no other Labour prime minister has ever done). He started off as kind of a republican (not as much as Cherie or Alistair Campbell) but wound up having a lot of respect for the Queen.
I bet she did.
I’m going to believe she did.
Samantha heard the news of Doria spending Christmas with the Royal family, so she posted a picture of Trump dressed as the Queen on Twitter, next Thomas will be doing a dailymail interview at the weekend, if he can wait that long.
I think she had to give up her citizenship when they got married
She can’t give up her US citizenship yet as she would be stateless. She can’t get her British citizenship until she has one year of Indefinite Leave to Remain (permanent residency), which takes 5 years to obtain. So six years in total.
I don’t think she will give up her US citizenship when she’s eligible for UK citizenship either. Autumn Phillips kept her Canadian citizenship so her kids have both. Since the US is an ally of the UK, there would be no conflict here either. Harry is far enough down the line that Meghan having dual citizenship is a non issue.
Dual citizenship makes more sense since Harry will only get further and further from the throne.
The only reason I could see Meghan giving up US citizenship is if for some reason she had to disclose the royal family’s finances to the US tax authorities (this isn’t an issue for Autumn because Canada doesn’t have taxation of worldwide income). But I generally agree, I don’t think she would want to give up her US citizenship.
I’m guessing that she didn’t, if only for the sake of any stories coming out about it; she’d get attacked for not “totally” pledging allegiance to her new home country.?
I doubt it. Seems like a conflict of interest for a member of brf to show any political bias. This is what she signed up for. She had to give up her former life.
@Originaltessa – but if she’s still a US citizen, it’s her right to vote and no one has to know for whom she voted. So she could vote without showing political bias. I mean, people can speculate but as long as she doesn’t make public comments about the election, I don’t see why she can’t still exercise her right.
Unless, of course, her filing for UK citizenship, and I thought Meghan had started that process, interferes with that. Does anyone know?
Meghan can’t apply for indefinite leave to remain until she has been in the UK on her spouse visa for 2 years. But as far as I am aware, there’s nothing on the UK side that prevents even holders of dual US-UK citizenship from voting in US elections.
Royals can’t/don’t vote, they’re not allowed to show alegience to one party or the other. I would assume she now has to live by this as well
As long as she isn’t telling anyone how she vote, how is this any of our business? She is a citizen of the US and has the liberty to vote in US elections.
Members of the Luxembourg royal family vote. They’re required to by law or face a fine.
Of course she did. Our darling Duch, in an election which CNN has just told us considers – to the tune of 71%! – voting re ethnic minorities of paramount importance, who is as “woke” as can be and as politically empowered, passionate about equality and feminism to the Nth degree, giving an eloquent and heartfelt speech about the importance of voting just last week – not cast her ballot? I can’t imagine a scenario in which she would have cast an absentee ballot – unless something sharp and pointy were involved. In which case, off with their heads.
MM is on the Vote with me app, under her legal name, Rachel. Nothing is private anymore… At least in the past one had to go to an administrative building to look at public records. Now it’s one click or download away.
Personally, I don’t think ANY of the British royals should be allowed to vote given how the royals took over half the world without a care for what happened to ordinary people. Also considering how the royals get insane perks for just being in the royal family they should have to give up/sacrifice something if they want to join..and no, I don’t think ending a career that was going nowhere and living with some extra attention is much of a sacrifice.
I think she didn’t vote… she had to give up everything and Royals don’t vote or get mix with politics.. they are to remain out of it…