The voting rights lottery and EU-UK relations

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Democracy has struggled to keep up with many of the changes to modern society. We are all familiar with debates around how AI or demagoguery are affecting our democracies. Governments’ democratic response to mobile populations, however, is still a conversation in need of attention. EU citizens, and in fact every resident, in Scotland and Wales have the right to vote in local and devolved elections for the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments. In England and Northern Ireland, however, voter eligibility is a bit more complicated. EU citizens who arrived in the UK by the 31st of December 2020 maintained their right to vote in local elections. EU citizens who arrive in the UK from 2021 onwards, the “post-Brexit” EU citizens, can only vote in local elections in England and Northern Ireland if their country of origin has a bilateral voting rights agreement with the UK. Only citizens of Denmark, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal and Spain have the benefit of these bilateral agreements.. The Cypriots and Maltese EU citizens in the UK have also saved their voting rights as Commonwealth citizens. At least British citizens living abroad who could not vote in the 2016 referendum could now, since the UK has abolished the 15-year rule. The fundamental  question is whether citizenship status, the colonial past and inter-state relations should maintain such a tight hold on who can and cannot vote in an era of mobility.

The regression in the most fundamental of rights due to BREXIT is a stark illustration of the more general challenge of adapting electoral systems to cross-border movements. This migration-focused phase in the struggle for universal suffrage is more complex than previous ones. The populations are naturally more dispersed and lack agency to fight for their rights. Whilst the right to vote is fundamental, Courts also recognise that national authorities decide on the composition of the electorate. 

In our work we have found there is a danger that those excluded from the franchise become resigned and pass this attitude on to the next generation. Often those on the move are confused and wrong about those voting rights they do have, since these differ according to your nationality, place of residence and the type of election. This can be seen by lower voter registration levels at only 66% amongst EU and Commonwealth citizens in the UK compared to voter registration rates closer to 90% for British nationals. Mobile citizens who care about securing their political rights should probably go for dual nationality, but that is not an option open to the majority, due to high costs and prohibitive dual nationality rules in some countries.

In the run-up to the June 2024 European elections, the consulates and EU Institutions struggled to provide full information to EU citizens in the UK. This is because disenfranchisement is often overlooked and how to vote across borders differs markedly from a requirement to travel back home to vote, to arrangements for postal voting, voting by proxy, voting at consulates, to internet voting (the last option surely making most sense for mobile voters and the young generation). The same Maltese and Cypriots who can vote in the UK could not vote back home in the June 2024 European elections alongside the Irish, most of the Danes, Bulgarians and any Germans who happen to be residents outside their country for over 25 years, just as UK citizens used to be disenfranchised after 15 years abroad. Italians in the UK were virtually disenfranchised since they had to travel back home to vote. 

The EU has set up a network of electoral authorities which cooperates to combat cross-border electoral fraud. This cooperation might serve to encourage greater approximation of eligibility rules and methods of voting, but changing electoral law is notoriously difficult. In the meantime, the network should look outwards and be the basis for setting up a special help desk on cross-border rights to vote and stand in elections across the EU  and neighbouring countries.

The new European Commission will shortly present proposals for a ‘Democracy Shield’, which Encompass has pointed out should not just be about protecting electoral systems from external threats. Internal reforms are equally important. A shield is of not much use if you do not have the right to vote in the first place. Whilst national sovereignty over elections must be respected, we would like to see a more multilateral approach and a European road map towards universal suffrage:

• Remove disenfranchisement.  
• The progress towards granting voting rights to overseas citizens is impressive, but the failure of a small group of EU countries to recognise political rights as portable is a stain on European democracy. The stain should be removed following the example of the UK abolishing the 15-year rule.
• Extend voting rights in local elections to all residents.  
• 23.9 million third country nationals resident in the EU only have the right to vote in 14 of the 27 in local elections, whereas 13.9 million mobile EU citizens can vote anywhere. 
• Upgrade these rights to regional elections. 
• If you can vote for a district in Brussels or Vienna, why not in the city elections? It is possible in some Scandinavian and German cities. Cities and regions should be given more of a say in voting rights.
• The extension of the franchise in national elections calls at least for a European debate. 
• Our experience with talking to people and carrying out symbolic votes on 26 April, International Voting Rights Day, is that a clear majority of people are in favour, well ahead of most political parties. Such a debate could be part of a process of getting more input from voters and non-voters alike so that our representative democracies are invigorated by a more participatory approach. They would also be better shielded.