The case
for external voting is usually presented as a question of principle, based on
the universality of the right to vote. In reality, however, the introduction of
external voting is enacted or enabled by legislation passed by elected
politicians. Although there have been a variety of reasons for the enactment of
external voting provisions, almost all have been the result of political
impetus, and many have been controversial and even nakedly partisan.
Historical
Background
The first
use of external voting appears to have been put in place by the Roman emperor
Augustus, who is said to have invented a new kind of suffrage under which the
members of the local senate in 28 newly established colonies cast votes for
candidates for the city offices of Rome and sent them under seal to Rome for
the day of the elections—an act which was undoubtedly based on political rather
than democratic motives. In more recent times, the earliest known use of
external voting took place in 1862, when Wisconsin
became the first of a number of US states which enacted provisions to allow
absentee voting by soldiers fighting in the Union army during the Civil War.
(The franchise was defined at state level in the USA.) Political contention was from
the beginning a major factor: Republicans backed external voting legislation as
they believed that soldiers were likely to support Republican President Abraham
Lincoln, while Democrats sympathetic to peace moves and the cause of the
Confederacy opposed it. Outside the military context, New Zealand introduced absentee voting for
seafarers in 1890, and Australia
adopted it in 1902, although under operating arrangements which made its use
outside Australia
practically impossible.
Many more
people were enlisted into armed forces during World War I (1914–8) than in
previous conflicts. In the United Kingdom (UK), the political demand for a
voice for those doing the fighting led in 1918 to the introduction of absentee voting
for military personnel, conducted by proxy. New Zealand gave the vote to all
military personnel, not just those over the then voting age of 21, during the
period of the war.
Canada provides more early examples of the influence of
political factors in the introduction and form of external voting. Postal
voting for military electors on active service was agreed at federal level in
1915: the Unionist government believed that Canadians on active military
service would be likely supporters. Before the federal election which followed
in 1917, the military franchise was extended. In addition, the military voter
could choose the electoral district where the vote would be counted— failing which the political party
chosen by the voter could do so after the results of the civilian voting
in-country were known!
Another
Canadian example of the influence of political factors was seen in the province of British Columbia, which enabled military
personnel overseas to vote in 1916 in referendums on women’s suffrage and on
the introduction of the prohibition of alcohol. While the referendum on the
vote for women passed easily, the result of the referendum on prohibition was
very close, and the votes of overseas soldiers were critical to the rejection
of the proposition. Following allegations of malpractice by the supporters of
prohibition, a legislative commission of inquiry recommended that most of the
overseas votes be disallowed. This recommendation was subsequently passed into
law, changing the result of the referendum, and prohibition was then enacted.
France introduced external voting in 1924
to cater to a different constituency: French administrators posted to the
occupied Rhineland were enabled to vote by
post. World War II (1939–45) produced further momentum for external voting
by active servicemen. In addition to postal voting by military personnel, Canada
introduced proxy voting on behalf of prisoners of war by their closest
relatives for the 1945 general election, and extended postal voting to military
families in 1955. Postal voting for military personnel, merchant seamen and
others working overseas on matters of national importance took place in the UK
in 1945, with a three-week delay between domestic polling and counting to allow
for ballot papers to be returned. France introduced proxy voting for
servicemen by 1946: by 1951, postal votes and/or proxy votes were available for
voters in a range of specified categories, including those on government or
military service or professional business away from their home.
A guarantee
that US
service personnel could register for a postal vote was passed in 1942, although
this was reduced in 1944 to a recommendation to states (which are the
registration authorities) to enable registration. The overseas postal vote was
gradually extended to cover non-military personnel serving abroad (in 1955) and
all US
citizens abroad (in 1968). Finally, under political pressure from US citizens
overseas, the registration provision became mandatory for states in 1975.
In common
with many other aspects of electoral administrative tradition, external voting
provisions often passed from the legislation of a colonial power to the
legislation of a newly independent state. The existence and form of external
voting in Malaysia followed its
use in colonial Malaya, which had in turn
derived it in the 1950s from the British legislation then in force. Postal
votes were available for overseas service personnel, for overseas public
servants and overseas students, and for their spouses. However, not all British
colonies had introduced external voting before independence, and indeed some of
the remaining British overseas territories and former colonies still do not
have it.
Several
French colonies retained the French proxy voting system at independence. France
introduced personal voting in embassies and consulates in 1975 for presidential
elections and referendums—an executive administrative initiative, because only
one version of the ballot paper is required—and a number of former French
colonies, for example Gabon and Guinea (Conakry), now have similar systems.
India enacted the core of its election
legislation in 1950 and 1951, creating a model which was widely studied in
other countries gaining independence. India at first specifically
excluded proxy voting, and enfranchised its service personnel through postal
voting. However, service personnel are now entitled to vote either by post or
by proxy, and electors in government service outside India are entitled to vote by post.
Indonesia legislated in 1953 for its first
democratic general elections. While some described the resulting law as
over-complex and a search for democratic perfection, the principle of
enfranchisement of all citizens, in particular migrant workers and students,
led to the introduction of external voting in Indonesian embassies abroad—a
mechanism that persisted through the elections of the years of authoritarianism
and remained in use in the democratic era. A similar wide qualification was
introduced by Colombia
in 1961.
The reasons
for introducing external voting also differ according to the historical and
political contexts. Thus, in several countries the introduction of the right to
vote for overseas citizens was an acknowledgement of their active participation
in World War I or World War II. In Spain, the introduction of external
voting in 1978 had a symbolic character insofar as its inclusion in the
democratic constitution meant the ex post facto acknowledgement of the
republican emigration after the Civil War. In Argentina (1993) it reflected the
government’s political/pragmatic intention to maintain or strengthen the ties
between emigrants and the mother country. In Austria the introduction of
external voting (in 1990) followed a resolution of the Constitutional Court. The United States
provides an example of those rare cases where external voting was finally
enacted in response to the demands of citizens residing overseas (in 1975).
While Swiss citizens had been able to travel back to Switzerland
to vote for some years, the argument that Swiss sovereignty precluded
foreigners from voting in Switzerland
and therefore prevented the Swiss from seeking agreement for external voting
was only finally overcome in 1989.
Political
parties and actors can be the key players in introducing external voting. A
provision in Honduras
that had long been stalled was activated by a party which saw political
advantage in doing so. In the UK
in the 1980s, the then Conservative government saw advantage in the general
enfranchisement of British citizens living overseas and enacted it, believing
that many expatriates would be their supporters, but were disappointed by the
very low take-up of overseas registration. Even an extension of the maximum
period of overseas residence from five years to 25 did not bring the party the
political benefits they anticipated.
However,
communities of expatriates do often seek involvement in their country of
origin, whether migrant workers seeking to retain links with their home,
members of long-term diaspora communities opposed to a current or former
regime, or expatriates remitting payments to relatives. Such communities can
themselves be influential in lobbying for the introduction of external
voting—as the Dominican
Republic case study shows.
The fear of
fraud in the operation of external voting provisions has sometimes been
well-founded. France
abolished postal voting in 1975 because of the incidence of fraud. French
provisions for proxy voting before 1982 allowed proxies to be registered in any
electoral district—which led in legislative elections to competition to
register proxies in marginal electoral districts. Since 1982, proxies may only
be registered in electoral districts with which the elector has a connection
according to a list specified in the electoral law.
External
voting provisions have not always proved to be sustainable. In the Cook Islands
(see the case study), the undesirable effects of political party competition to
fly voters overseas back for the poll led to the introduction of a separate
electoral district for Cook Islanders resident overseas. Although Cook Islands elections have remained competitive,
political support for the overseas seat declined and it was abolished for the
2004 election.
Image: flickr/Franck Prevel
Social and
Political Context
The
importance of political factors in the adoption and design of external voting
provisions was accentuated during the democratic transitions of the 1990s. The
inclusion of citizens abroad was often seen as a key element in the process of
nation-building, for example, in Namibia
in 1989 and South Africa
in 1994.
Diaspora
communities may be active in seeking a post-transition role, and may be
particularly influential when they play a role in the domestic politics of
major donor countries. However, such pressure is not always successful. The elections
which took place in Palestine
in 1996 were held under the terms of the Oslo Agreement of 1993 and the
Israeli–Palestinian Interim Agreement of 1995. Under these agreements, the
right of return of displaced Palestinians and their families was left for
consideration in final-status negotiations. Although there was considerable
pressure within the Palestinian diaspora for voting rights, no external voting
provisions were introduced.
The
international community frequently plays a leading or significant role in
mediating transitions and even in implementing transitional elections.
Transition agreements may therefore contain important and sometimes
controversial external voting provisions. The General Framework Agreement for
Peace signed at Dayton in 1995 led to the most
complex use of external voting thus far attempted in the 1996 elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The issue at stake was the extent to which the ‘ethnic cleansing’ that had
taken place during the conflict would be recognized in the elections. Would
people who had been displaced or become refugees be able, both as a question of
principle and in practice, to vote in the locality which they had left, or in a
locality where they now were or where they intended to make a future home? The
agreement provided for both options. While the Organization for Security and
Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) sought to implement the terms of the agreement,
the political forces in Bosnia—many of which had been the major participants in
the war—sought to encourage some versions of external voting, and to discourage
others.
In a
transitional context, the question of who implements external voting can be
politically highly sensitive. The International Organization for Migration
(IOM) organized external voting for Bosnia and Herzegovina in a variety
of countries for several elections. When external voting for the 2004 elections
in Afghanistan was being
planned, Pakistan
offered to organize the polling stations itself—politically a highly
controversial proposal, which was not in the event accepted. The same
arrangement may, however, be entirely acceptable in other circumstances. The
electoral authority of the US
territory of Guam
organizes polling for the many citizens of the Federated
States of Micronesia based in Guam,
an arrangement which finds all-round support.
External
voting and electoral system design
Political
considerations are not only important in determining whether external voting
takes place: they are also influential in defining its form. Many decisions relating
to external voting are linked to electoral system design, another highly
political aspect of democratic reform and democratic transition. Electoral
system design is one of the most important elements in the institutional
framework of a country, influencing as it does the political party system.
Electoral system reform may be on the agenda as a result of vision or a
motivation to improve democracy, or for more short-term, sectoral or even venal
reasons on the part of some political participants. This is mirrored by
external voting, which may be placed on the democratic agenda by those who
believe strongly in the equal right of all citizens to participate—or by
political forces which see potential advantage in it.
The desire
to promote external voting may constrain the options for electoral system
design. Conversely, the adoption of a particular electoral system may limit the
options for external voting mechanisms. This can be illustrated by considering
the three basic options for external voting—personal voting at an external
polling site in a diplomatic mission, for example; remote voting by post, fax
or some form of e-voting; and voting by proxy.
Personal
voting and electoral system design
Personal
voting at a polling station in-country is easy: all voters at the polling
station will normally be voting in the same electoral district in the same
election or elections, and will thus need to receive the same ballot papers.
Minor exceptions (such as the small number of members of the UK House of Lords,
who may not vote in legislative elections but may vote in local elections) can
be accommodated.
The same is
not, however, necessarily true of a polling site in for example a diplomatic
mission. The electors may originate from anywhere in the country that is holding
the election. Where the same ballot paper is in use across the whole country,
this is not a problem: for example, everyone receives the same ballot paper in
a plurality or majority election for president. The same is true when electing
legislators under a List proportional representation (List PR) system in which
the whole country forms one electoral district, and even when closed List PR is
used in smaller electoral districts using ballot papers which only carry party
names and logos.
The
position is very different when candidate-based systems or systems with smaller
electoral districts are used to elect legislators, and ballot papers are not
the same country-wide. First, the electoral authorities have to establish how
many of each ballot paper to despatch to each diplomatic mission. Then, the
mission staff have to issue the right ballot paper to each external voter.
Under
plurality/majority systems, for example, First Past The Post, the Two-Round
System, Alternative Vote, Block Vote and Single Non-Transferable Vote, polling
site officials will need to know in which district a voter is entitled to vote.
The same is true under Single Transferable Vote.
If open or
free List PR are used, the individual candidate lists will be different in each
district, even if the same selection of parties are contesting every district.
With closed List PR, the same applies if it is thought that the voter has the
right to know when voting the identity of the candidates on the list of each
party. Mixed systems, whether Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) or Parallel, are
the most problematic, posing the challenges of both of their components
simultaneously. Problems are likely to be magnified further if a decision is
taken to use external voting in regional and local elections.
The task of
determining which ballot paper each voter should receive may not then be
simple, especially if the voter has left the home country a considerable time
before. Neither voters nor polling site officials might be expected to have
detailed knowledge of precise electoral boundaries. It may be possible to use
the registration process to determine the correct location of each elector and
record it in a form that is accessible at polling sites, although this is a
task that can consume considerable time and resources. Alternatively, electoral
system designers can design versions of their chosen system in which a specific
external district with reserved seats is created—as in Croatia.
Another option is to allocate all external voters to a small number of electoral
districts—as in Indonesia, where the external votes cast in Malaysia and
Singapore are included in one of the two electoral districts in the capital,
Jakarta, and all other external votes to the second Jakarta district.
Even when
the most recent place of residence in the home country of each elector is
known, logistical challenges remain. The polling site needs to receive ballot
papers for every district from the central electoral administration, and the
polling site officials then need to ensure that the correct ballot paper is
issued to each voter. There may be considerable potential for error and
confusion. The values of electoral inclusion, electoral system sustainability
and electoral integrity may pull in different directions, and a balance must be
achieved.
Remote
voting and electoral system design
While the
electoral system design challenges for external voting using remote mechanisms
are perhaps not as difficult as those using personal voting mechanisms, there
are still substantial issues. While the packaging and despatch of correct
ballot papers may be conducted under less time pressure, and the central
election administration staff involved probably better trained and less likely
to make mistakes than the officials at out-of-country polling sites, the
possibility of error and confusion remains. The reliability of postal services
in some parts of the world is clearly also an issue.
In
addition, the electoral timetable can become a relevant factor. Ballot papers
cannot be printed and despatched until nominations are closed and verified:
time is then needed for international postal services to function in both
directions. If the closing date for return of external postal ballot papers is
set for polling day, this may not be consistent with the length of the campaign
period. If it is set later than polling day, problems of the credibility of
partial results may arise, especially in close elections where the external
vote may be decisive. Timetable issues will be particularly difficult where a
Two-Round System is in use, as the ballot papers for the second round can only
be printed and despatched when the result of the first round is known.
Proxy
voting and electoral system resign
Of the
three approaches to external voting mechanisms, proxy votes cause the least
problems to electoral system designers. The problems of allocating external
voters to electoral districts remain, but if this can be achieved, the proxies
can be considered just as the voters themselves would be. Voters will
presumably choose proxies who are in-country and able to vote at the same
polling stations as they themselves would. In any event, the choice of proxy is
the voter’s responsibility. A proxy voting system may, however, have other
disadvantages, not least the issues that it can raise about electoral
integrity.
Timing
issues
External
voting may be complex, and is always relatively time-consuming. However, where
new electoral arrangements are being created, it is well known from experience
that political actors will take all the time available for negotiating the form
of a new election law. It is after all established negotiating practice to get
maximum value for concessions by making them only when there is pressure of
time to reach an agreement. This means that electoral administrators are almost
certain to be operating without sufficient time to produce the ideal—or even a
desirable—election. When corners need to be cut, simple systems which will work
satisfactorily under pressure are therefore valuable. This may affect the choice
of external voting method adopted.
