Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - As you know, the primary election season is now well underway in the United States. What you may not know is that President Obama signed into law the "Military Overseas Voter Empowerment Act" (MOVE) that requires all overseas and military voters to re-register for every election cycle, instead of every two election cycles. This means that you will need to re-register and request your federal post card application (FPCA) for the federal elections taking place in 2012.

It does not matter that you may have voted in previous federal elections from Mexico and had been automatically sent your absentee ballot by your county's registrar of voters. This new law requires all of us who want to participate in their state's primary and the general election to re-register and request your FPCA. This will trigger an absentee ballot to be sent to your home in Mexico or some other address you specify, such as Mail Boxes Etc. This absentee ballot is only for federal electoral candidates (candidates for the House of Representatives, the Senate, the President and Vice-President.)

If you maintain a residence in the United States, and will be requesting an absentee ballot from your county registrar of voters, you do not need to re-register.

If you have a computer, the easiest and fastest way to take care of this is to sign onto either the Democrats Abroad site, votefromabroad.org, or overseasvotefoundation.org. Both sites assist people of all political preferences. You can also contact your local Democrats Abroad chapter. A voter's help desk associated with the Overseas Vote Foundation can be found on their website.

Most importantly, the right to vote should not be taken lightly. As we have seen numerous times in countries around the world, people die for the right to vote. So please re-register and request your federal post card application today.