Emigrant voting is increasingly topical as it have become more and more common for citizens of democratic states to have the right to vote in a county they no longer live, or may have never lived, but are citizens of. Moreover, emigrant voting is being made easier by many countries as they allow postal voting from abroad (e.g. Sweden and Finland) or even have separate emigrant voting districts and candidates (e.g. Italy). As emigrant voting practices expand and emigrant voting becomes more common, we also need pay heed to its consequences and how the political power wielded by emigrants is legitimized. The purpose of this paper is to take a more in-depth look at the relationship between emigrant voting and democratic theory.
While emigrant voting rights appear quite natural in world where borders are more fluid and citizens increasingly move between countries, its relationship with some of the central principles of inclusion derived from democratic theory are quite complicated. According to the all affected principle “all who are affected by a decision should have a right to participate into making it” (Dahl 1970, p. 64). This principle is often used to determine who should belong to the demos. In our present transnational world this principle can be seen as both idealistic and problematic, since for many issues it challenges the boundaries of states and our current the decisions-making units that largely are bound to the nation state. However, the principle also reveals a potential problem of allowing emigrants to vote, since the may never be affected by the decisions they are allowed to influence. Following the all affected principle the link between emigrants and the demos seems strenuous at best.
The matter is further complicated by the fact that there are many groups who are affected or subjected to decisions, even though they themselves have no say in these decisions. This is the role of non-citizens, but also those who have not yet reached the voting age or belong to future generations. Groups that according to the all affected principle should be taken into account in decision-making.
