Non-resident citizen voting
Social scientists have advanced a number of claims about the causes and consequences of this development and debated its normative implications or pros and cons of nonresident citizen voting.
[6] Italy, on the other hand, established special seats in the Italian Senate and the Chamber of Deputies to represent non-resident citizens.
[7] After WWII Indonesia adopted legislation in 1953 which allowed not just military personnel or other public servants but also migrant workers and students to vote from abroad.
[9] Finally, Turcu and Urbatch found evidence for the diffusion of democratic norms favoring non-resident citizen voting.
Political theorist and citizenship scholar Rainer Bauböck has evaluated a number of arguments in favor of non-resident citizen voting.
[11] The legal scholar Ruth Rubio Marin is more critical of proposals to extend voting rights to non-resident citizens.
[12] She argues that "[a]bsentee voting is an option that, under certain circumstances, sending countries may legitimately embrace; it is not a right that diasporic national communities can simply assert" (page 145).
While most countries and territories only had one polling place, multiple were available for voters in Brazil (2), Canada (3), China (4, excluding Hong Kong), Germany (2), India (5), Indonesia (4), Italy (2), Japan (2), New Zealand (2), Papua New Guinea (2), Switzerland (2), Turkey (2), the United Arab Emirates (2), the United States (7) and Vietnam (2).
2012), which also abolished the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde constituency and direct Senate elections, replaced the free choice by an objectively defined municipality (where the person last lived, or else further criteria apply).
The law of 17 November 2016 slightly changed the procedure, and also extended the right to vote for European Parliament elections to Belgians living in a non-EU member state.
[20] Per Bill C-76,[21] Canadian expatriates may vote in federal elections by post or in person, no matter how long they've lived outside the country.
Chilean expatriates have the right to vote in presidential elections (primaries, first and second round) and national referendums in the consulate where they registered.
[27][28] The law allowing expatriate Chilean citizens the right to vote was presented by President Michelle Bachelet and approved by Congress in August 2016.
Regardless of their time living abroad, Colombian expatriates enjoy full voting rights in national referendums, presidential and parliamentary elections.
In order to vote, Colombian citizens have to register in their respective consulate or embassy in the established periods before the election dates.
[29] Costa Rican citizens can vote for president and national referendums regardless of their time living abroad since Electoral Code's reform of 2010.
For the 2021 election, Czech expats are trying to raise awareness of the difficulty to attend polling stations to call for the ability to vote by post.
Article 12(2)(1) of the Federal Voting Act[44] states that German citizens who live abroad and have no residence in Germany may vote in German parliamentary elections and European Parliament elections if: Guinea-Bissau has two overseas constituencies - one for Africa (Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Cape Verde and Mauritania) and one for Europe (Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium and England).
[47] In Hungary, there are effectively two types of non-resident citizens with different voting rights, on account of the electoral system used for the National Assembly, and the large number of ethnic Hungarians in neighbouring countries like Romania holding Hungarian citizenship, who have had the right to vote since 2012, but may never have lived in Hungary itself.
[54][57] Expatriates intending to return to Ireland within eighteen months may retain their Irish address for electoral purposes, but must be present to vote in person.
[64] Lithuania established a single-member "World Lithuanians' constituency"[65] in the Seimas, its unicameral parliament, for its citizens abroad in 2019,[66] taking effect with the 2020 parliamentary election.
[69] Although the law clearly states a residency requirement, it is rarely enforced and hundreds of expatriate fly down to Malta to vote in Elections.
In 2021, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Zubairu Dada reiterated the Government's intent to enact diaspora voting, albeit not in time for the 2023 Nigerian general election.
[98] Pursuant to the revised section 33 (3) and (4) of the Electoral Amendment Act 18 of 2013, South African citizens living abroad are able to exercise the right to vote in national elections, and are also able to register from outside the country.
There is no time limit to eligibility, but after the initial 10-year period has elapsed, Swedish expatriates must renew their electoral roll registration by filling out a form every 10 years.
[105][106] Expatriate suffrage is limited to overseas citizens who have once had household registration in the “Free Area”, and voting is possible only for presidential elections.
As of the day of voting of 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, there were 102 polling stations in 72 countries of the World, including 5 in Germany, 4 in the United States, Poland and Italy, and 3 in Canada, Spain, Turkey and China.
The Elections Act 2022 removed the previous rule whereby British citizens residing abroad could vote for up to 15 years after ceasing to live in the UK.
[112] This rule was a hotly debated topic among British citizens abroad, particularly those who had lived in European Union Member States for more than 15 years at the time of referendum on European Union membership, and were thus barred from voting in it despite it being argued that they were more affected by the result than British people living in the UK.
[113][114] The Government intended that registration of overseas electors would be possible from in the autumn of 2023[115] but the required secondary legislation was only laid before Parliament on 23 October 2023.
