Towards the fairer and more representative electoral system for non-resident voters: The case of Poland and Lithuania

Although voting by non-resident citizens in national elections is the norm around the world, the electoral procedures employed vary greatly and yield diverse outcomes and implications. Poland and Lithuania are examples of countries where the number of votes cast from abroad have increased greatly in recent years, a direct consequence of the mass outflow of emigrants since accession to the EU. The two countries use different electoral mechanisms for their non-resident citizens. Poland is an example of an assimilated representation system where votes cast abroad are counted towards one specific constituency in the capital city. This arrangement means that emigrants vote together with residents of Warsaw for the same list of candidates. In recent parliamentary elections, the large increase in the number of voters registered abroad, initiated a debate about the implementation of fairer means of representation of Polish non-resident voters in the national legislature. Lithuania, on the other hand, in 2019 changed the electoral process from assimilated representation to special representation for emigrants by implementing an extraterritorial one-seat constituency. The paper evaluated the pros and cons of different models of representation of non-resident voters in national elections. The study examines legislative reports, legal documents, and minutes of parliamentary debates to illuminate the debate around introducing a special representation system in Lithuania as well as the legal and normative arguments used by the critics of the assimilated representation system which exists in Poland. The central argument of the paper is that special representation of non-resident citizens is the more appropriate solution especially for countries with large numbers of citizens living abroad.