Getting the Diaspora to Vote: The Role of E-voting on Emigrants’ Electoral Behavior

Ekaterina R. Rashkova (Utrecht University) is Associate Professor of Comparative Politics at the Public Governance and Management unit at Utrecht University School of Governance. She earned her PhD in Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh, USA, in 2010 for a dissertation entitled ‘Political Learning and the Number of Parties: Why Age Matters’, which won the UniCredit and Universities Foundation Best CEE PhD Thesis Award in May 2011. She received a Bachelor in Economics and a Master in Political Economy and Public Policy from Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to taking her post at Utrecht, Ekaterina worked at the Sussex University, University of Innsbruck and Leiden University. During the 2015-2016 academic year, she was won the prestigious EURIAS Junior Fellowship Grant, with which she spent a year at the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study (NIAS) conducting research on the effect of electoral regulation on party competition. Adrian Favero (University of Groningen) is Assistant Professor in European Politics & Society at the University of Groningen. He holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Edinburgh (2018), an MA in European Studies from the Jagiellonian University, Krakow (2014), a BA in Political Science & Communication from the University of Zurich (2012), and a BA in Primary Education from Rorschach College (2003). Abstract: With increasing levels of migration, the share of external voters that participate in national elections in their home country is increasing. Yet, they still constitute a rather understudied group. In Switzerland, around 27% of the 800,000 Swiss expats are registered to vote, which is a comparatively large number (e.g. 10.4% in Austria, 3.8% in Germany). Despite that, voter turnout remains low, around 25%. This study seeks to examine what contributes to higher rates of external citizen voting. We combine socio-demographic, compositional and behavioral factors with new e-voting rights to gain more insights into expats’ voting behaviour. The voting rights of Swiss expats from three cantons (Basel-Stadt, St. Gallen and Thurgau) were recently expanded allowing former residents to vote electronically in the National Council elections in October 2023. This new voting procedure is expected to facilitate voting, and to therefore increase voter turnout, but we do not know whether and how it influences expats’ voting behaviour. For our research, we focus on the voting behavior of the over 9,000 Swiss expats in the Netherlands. Using the results of a survey distributed among the six regional expat clubs, we aim to better understand the Swiss’ voting behaviour in national elections at home. In addition, the article aims to contribute to our broader understanding of what drives diaspora turnout and to a thorough evaluation of the benefits and potential shortfalls resulting from the newly introduced e-voting system for some areas in Switzerland.