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As of 2020 a total of 141countries grant expatriates the right to vote in elections in their countries of origin. There is considerable variation across countries in regard to voter eligibility, voting modalities, i.e. voting in person at diplomatic missions or other physical locations, by mail or online, which elections nonresident citizens may vote in, i.e. elections of the national legislature, executive elections, referendums, or sub-national elections, and how nonresident citizen voters are represented. The number of countries enfranchising nonresident citizens accelerated significantly in the 1990s. 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.

Variations

Some countries (such as France) grant their expatriate citizens unlimited voting rights, identical to those of citizens living in their home country. Other countries allow expatriate citizens to vote only for a certain number of years after leaving the country, after which they are no longer eligible to vote (e.g. 25 years for Germany, except if you can show that you are still affected by the political decisions in Germany). Other countries reserve the right vote solely to citizens living in that country, thereby stripping expatriate citizens of their voting rights once they leave their home country (such as Ireland, with extremely limited exceptions).

There is similar variation in how non-resident citizens can exercise their right to vote. Most commonly, non-resident voters have to cast their ballots at an embassy or consulate of their country. Some countries are even more restrictive, such as Timor-Leste which "limited in-person voting to only its Australian and Portugese missions in 2017." At the less restrictive end of the spectrum non-resident New Zealand voters my download their ballots and upload their completed ballots to the Electoral Commission's website or mail in or fax their ballots to the New Zealand Electoral Commission or a New Zealand diplomatic mission.

French non-resident citizen voters may cast ballots in elections for the European Parliament, French presidential elections, national referendums as well as elections to the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, and elections for members of the Assembly of French Citizens Resident Abroad who in turn elect 12 members of the French Senate. New Zealand non-resident citizen voters may cast their ballots in national as well as local elections. In Colombia non-resident citizens may vote in presidential and legislative elections, but they are excluded from regional and local elections.

Finally, some countries assimilate non-resident voters into existing constituencies for resident citizens whereas others have reserved special seats in their legislatures for non-resident citizen voters. The United States is an example of the first alternative. United States citizens who live abroad may vote in the state where they have established voting residence, and their votes will count toward election results in that state. Italy, on the other hand, established special seats in the Italian Senate and the Chamber of Deputies to represent non-resident citizens.

Historical Development

According to a pioneering study by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, the first case of external voting took place in the United States in the state of Wisconsin in 1862 when the state allowed absentee voting by soldiers fighting in the Civil War. The United Kingdom also allowed absentee voting for soldiers in 1918. 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. The biggest expansion of external voting occurred in the 1990s.

Causes and Consequences

There are a number of different reasons which explain why and when states enfranchise non-resident citizens. One factor is that states seek benefits from emigrants, i.e. states hope that emigrants will be more likely to contribute to the economy of their country of origin through remittances or show loyalty in other ways if they have the right to vote in that country's elections. Second, the enfranchisement of non-resident citizens may be the result of lobbying by emigrant organizations. This played a role in the Mexican case. Third, governing parties will resist non-resident citizen voting if they have grounds to believe that extending the franchise will benefit the opposition. Thus, non-resident citizen voting becomes possible once the opponents of non-resident citizen voting lose power as happened in Italy in the 1990s. Finally, Turcu and Urbatch found evidence for the diffusion of democratic norms favoring non-resident citizen voting. Once one country introduces non-resident citizen voting, neighboring countries become more likely to do the same.

Normative Debates

Just because an increasing number of countries have come to accept non-resident citizen voting does not by itself mean that this is a desirable development. Political theorists and legal scholars have debated the merits of and problems with non-resident citizen voting. Political theorist and citizenship scholar Rainer Bauböck has evaluated a number of arguments in favor of non-resident citizen voting. First, in a democracy all citizens beyond the minimum age requirement should have the right to voter, and non-resident citizens are still citizens and thus should have the right to vote. Second, non-resident citizens make important economic contributions to their countries of origin, and the value of these contributions should be recognized by offering them the right to vote. Ultimately, Rainer Bauböck favors a third approach centered around the concept of stakeholder community. He proposes the "[i]ndividuals whose circumstances of life link their future well-being to the flourishing of a particular polity should be recognized as stakeholders in that polity with a claim to participate in collective decision-making processes that shape the shared future of this political community" (page 2422). Thus, the first generation should be allowed to vote in elections in their countries of origin. According to Rainer Bauböck, this privilege should not automatically be extended to the second or subsequent generations.

The legal scholar Ruth Rubio Marin is more critical of proposals to extend voting rights to non-resident citizens. 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).

A polling station at the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Helsinki

Postal voting package sent to an Indonesian voter in the United Kingdom for the 2019 Indonesian general election.