On September 4, 2026, I got an email from US Voters Abroad with the subject “Outside the U.S.? You can vote in 2026.” It was addressed to me personally, referenced Virginia’s election procedures, and claimed that “public voter records list you as a U.S. voter with an overseas connection.”

I don’t live overseas or have overseas connections, and I was curious how my name ended up on this mailing list.

That claim started an investigation that went through the original email’s headers, IRS filings, FEC records, grant reports, advertising contractors, and a Virginia FOIA request. The short version: the message came from the Center for U.S. Voters Abroad (CUVA), operated by two affiliated nonprofits—Act Now Project (a 501(c)(4)) and Act Now Coalition (a 501(c)(3)).

The 2024 numbers are substantial. Act Now Coalition reported roughly $10 million in revenue and $7.2 million spent on an overseas voter-registration program. Act Now Project reported about $4.5 million, with roughly three-quarters of its revenue coming from three reported grants. This includes a $2.5 million grant from Future Forward USA Action, which is the same 501(c)(4) that gave hundreds of millions to FF PAC, a major independent-expenditure group that supported Kamala Harris.

The email itself was sent through authenticated Amazon SES infrastructure from the organization’s domain. Its tracking parameters labeled the outreach “coldemail,” used a campaign code that included “rct” (commonly shorthand for randomized controlled trial in voter-outreach research), and routed even the official FVAP.gov link through the sender’s tracking domain.

A shared advertising contractor, C Plus K LLC, has done work for both CUVA entities and for Democratic-aligned super PACs. Act Now Project also reported independent expenditures to oppose Donald Trump.

A Virginia FOIA request to the Department of Elections produced a clear answer within its scope: the department had no records of the named parties requesting, purchasing, or receiving state voter-list products. That rules out one direct channel but leaves commercial vendors, other states, self-submitted data, or other intermediaries unexamined.

What the public record shows is a large, privately financed overseas-voter mobilization operation with progressive funding ties, shared contractors, candidate-related spending by the 501(c)(4), and detailed tracking.

What it does not show is the source of the data that classified a non-overseas American as someone with an “overseas connection,” or evidence of illegal registrations or coordination. Overseas citizens have legitimate voting rights, and private groups can help them. The open question is how this particular list was built and whether the data practices match the claims.

Full investigation with the methodology and primary-source details: https://bureaucracy.news/2026/10/14/from-suspicious-email-to-multimillion-dollar-overseas-voter-network/

Has anyone else received one of these, or seen similar outreach from CUVA / Act Now? Curious what the data trail looks like from other angles.