Should citizens with a permanent residence in a different country vote?

[Martinus]

Do you think people with your country's nationality/citizenship, who have a permanent place of residence in a different country, be allowed to vote in national elections in your country?

Poland allows it, partially as a nod to the emigrants who were forced one way or another to leave Poland during the communist regime, but I am not sure if this is a sound policy in an otherwise democratic country. Communism fell 20 years ago. People who wanted to could have come back by now, and more people left simply for financial reasons etc.  I don't see why people who do not contribute to the wellbeing of my country (e.g. by paying taxes, working here etc.) should have a say in its governance.

What do you think?

[Monoriu]

I am a full citizen of the United Kingdom and Canada.  In fact I became a UK citizen long before I set foot in that country 

I am so detached from these two places that I don't feel people like me should vote.  I don't think they allow it, anyway.  Heck, even if I do live in one of these two places I'll never vote anyway.  I refuse to register as a voter in HK 

[DisturbedPervert]

I bet Poles living abroad a long time are more tolerant of gays and vote that way.

[Martinus]

You would think that, wouldn't you?

At least judging from the Polish expat organizations in the US (and they are more likely to vote than people who go native), they are some of the most racist and antisemitic catholic troglodytes. They almost always vote for PiS and are convinced Jews from the EU and New York are taking over Poland.

[Monoriu]

Ahh, so this thread is gay after all 

[Martinus]

Ahh, so this thread is gay after all 

Nope. This is about people with no connection to the country and out of touch with its problems being allowed to vote.

[Eddie Teach]

Never really thought about it. They're such a small percentage of the electorate it doesn't really matter. I can see how it'd be seen as a problem in a country people are fleeing however. 

[Zanza]

Do you think people with your country's nationality/citizenship, who have a permanent place of residence in a different country, be allowed to vote in national elections in your country?

No. Only citizens that are considered residents (maybe the same criteria as residency for tax purposes?) should be allowed to vote.

Some exceptions would be diplomats, soldiers and other government officials that are sent abroad for longer terms. I would also include German civil servants of the EU in that category. They should be allowed to vote as they serve Germany abroad and should not be excluded from political participation for that.

[The Larch]

It is an issue over here as well, particulary in my region. Over here emigrants abroad and their descendants can vote in everything, from the national level down to the local level. There are talks at the moment to restrict that voting from abroad only to the Senate, while creating a new electoral circumscription for spaniards abroad (as Italy did).

I wholeheartedly support it, as my region is most probably the hardest hit by the current system. Thousands of people from my region emigrated during the XXth century, at first to Latin America (Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela and Argentina, mainly) and afterwards to Northern-Central Europe (mostly to Switzerland and Germany), and thanks to Spanish citizenship laws, their sons and grandsons can also get Spanish nationality and consequently vote in Spanish elections. The bottom line is that at the moment 12% of the census for my region does not live on it, and many of those (the sons and grandsons of the emigrants) might have never even set foot here, yet they can vote. Lots of elections here have to wait for the votes from abroad before being able to proclaim a winner, as victory margins are sometimes very thin, and a few thousand votes can change the colour of a regional MP or a council member.

I'm currently getting a lot of flak for defending such a measure by some friends who live abroad, but I really feel that the current situation had to be changed.

[Zanza]

Never really thought about it. They're such a small percentage of the electorate it doesn't really matter. I can see how it'd be seen as a problem in a country people are fleeing however. 

It's a problem as it is virtually impossible to assign them to a constituency.

[DisturbedPervert]

Citizens should be allowed to vote.  You can change the citizenship laws to not allow dual citizenship.

[The Larch]

Never really thought about it. They're such a small percentage of the electorate it doesn't really matter. I can see how it'd be seen as a problem in a country people are fleeing however. 

It's a problem as it is virtually impossible to assign them to a constituency.

How so? Over here people abroad count as living in the constituency they lived in when they were here. So, the guy that, back in the 20s, emigrated from Bumfuck, Ourense, to Buenos Aires still votes as if he was living in Bumfuck for all purposes. I guess that his sons and grandsons would also count toward living in Bumfuck as well, but I'm not that sure.

[sbr]

Citizens should be allowed to vote.  You can change the citizenship laws to not allow dual citizenship.

This seems a better solution to me as well.

[Agelastus]

Do you think people with your country's nationality/citizenship, who have a permanent place of residence in a different country, be allowed to vote in national elections in your country?

Yes. A citizen is a citizen. Depriving someone of their right to vote simply because they move abroad (for example, retirees moving to a warmer clime in their old age) effectively creates a "first class citizen" and "second class citizen" status. The case for second or third generation emigrees is less clear, but while the rules allow dual citizenship I'd have to come down on the side of allowing them to vote.

[Martinus]

Never really thought about it. They're such a small percentage of the electorate it doesn't really matter. I can see how it'd be seen as a problem in a country people are fleeing however. 

Nice troll but it is more of a citizenship law issue (law of blood vs. law of soil) than what you are saying.

The thing is, most European countries award citizenship to people born of parents with these countries' citizenship, whether such people were born in such country or not. This means that after generations emigrants can still have citizenship of their country of origin.