A majority of countries worldwide extend a provision of voting rights to their nonresident
citizens. A growing number of normative or empirical contributions
analyse the different patterns and varieties of emigrant enfranchisement. Prior
literature has looked into several effects of external voting on political parties
mobilisation, transnational campaigns and the spatiality of state authority. Yet,
comparative studies on emigrant voter turnout are still rare, particularly in
regions other than Europe. At methodological level, case studies are the most
recurrent research practice to address emigrant voter turnout. Scholars have
also somehow surprisingly overlooked how overseas votes impact national
elections.
To fill these gaps, first I describe external voting electoral results in 16 Latin
American countries from 2002 to 2018. Second, I analyse the effect of
institutional and political variables on voter turnout among non-resident
Chileans, Colombians, Ecuadorians and Peruvians. I do that using a panel data
set in which the overseas election results are nested to the different overseas
districts (for Colombia and Ecuador) and to the countries of residence of these
diasporas. Third, I assess to what extent their overseas votes impact national
elections. The uniqueness of Latin American countries in terms of electoral
rules and migrant policies contributes to strengthening theories on transnational
voting rights and to the blooming literature on migrant enfranchisement, the
political effects of external voting and special representation of emigrants.
