Issue Encyclopedia · Guideline C · Foreign Preference
Voting in a Foreign Election
Does voting in a foreign election affect a security clearance?
Basis: 164 decided hearing-level cases raising this issue. Descriptive history of decided cases, not a prediction.
Decided cases
164
hearing-level decisions raising this issue
Granted
48%
79 granted · 85 denied or revoked
Official mitigating conditions cited
| Condition | In granted cases | In denied cases |
|---|---|---|
| ¶ 11(b) · Dual citizenship from parentage or place of birth alone | 13 | 3 |
| ¶ 11(d) · The foreign citizenship was exercised before becoming a United States citizen | 11 | 0 |
| ¶ 11(a) · The foreign citizenship does not conflict with United States interests | 8 | 1 |
| ¶ 11(e) · The benefits of foreign citizenship raise no security concern | 8 | 3 |
¶ 11(b) · Dual citizenship from parentage or place of birth alone
- In granted cases
- 13
- In denied cases
- 3
¶ 11(d) · The foreign citizenship was exercised before becoming a United States citizen
- In granted cases
- 11
- In denied cases
- 0
¶ 11(a) · The foreign citizenship does not conflict with United States interests
- In granted cases
- 8
- In denied cases
- 1
¶ 11(e) · The benefits of foreign citizenship raise no security concern
- In granted cases
- 8
- In denied cases
- 3
Recent decided examples
The case involves an applicant seeking a security clearance who has lived in Australia for over twenty years. The applicant admitted to allegations under Guidelines B and C but successfully mitigated …
The applicant in this case was a 28-year-old systems analyst employed by a defense contractor since August 2022. She was born in Colombia, became a U.S. citizen in March 2018, and had family members r…
Applicant, a defense contractor employee and dual citizen of the United States, Portugal, and France, was denied a security clearance under Guidelines B and C. He owned substantial real estate in Port…
Applicant, a dual Belgian-American citizen and scientist for a defense contractor, was denied eligibility for a security clearance. The judge found mitigating evidence sufficient for Guideline B, invo…
Related issues under Guideline C
- Possession or Use of a Foreign Passport (1,025)
- Applying for or Acquiring Foreign Citizenship (686)
- Unwillingness to Renounce/Surrender Foreign Citizenship or Passport (574)
- Unspecified Foreign Preference (516)
- Accepting Foreign Benefits, Education, or Entitlements (169)
- Service in a Foreign Military or Government (143)
How these numbers are measured
Scope: decided hearing-level cases whose per-allegation profile records this issue, matched to the same issue value the search filters use, so a count here and a filtered search always agree. A case raising several issues counts under each one. The mitigating conditions and the credited circumstances below were extracted for a subset of the record, so both are counts of cases rather than rates. Pages exist only for issues with at least 25 decided cases, and † marks any split built on fewer than 20.
Reading the statistics
- Granted = access granted or continued; Denied = denied or revoked.
- Grant rate = granted ÷ (granted + denied).
- † marks figures based on fewer than 20 cases, too few to be reliable.
- Hovering any rate shows its statistical range (a 95% confidence interval).
- Figures are descriptive counts over decided, public DOHA ISCR decisions, never predictions or assessments of any pending case.
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