Swamped: Exploring Attitudes to Emigrant Enfranchisement in Portugal and Ireland

Theresa Reidy (University College Cork) is a senior lecturer in the Department of Government and Politics at University College Cork. She has published widely on Irish politics, especially on electoral behaviour and political institutions. Theresa is the co-editor of a number of books, including of Politics in the Republic of Ireland and How Ireland Voted. And her research on elections and referendums has also been published in Electoral Studies, Parliamentary Affairs and Politics. Abstract: Unusually among countries with large diasporas, the Republic of Ireland does not provide voting rights for its citizens living abroad. For almost thirty years, emigrant groups have lobbied for a franchise extension which is supported by all political parties. Yet progress is glacial. A referendum on voting rights at presidential elections has been on the agenda since 2013, a proposal to allocate voting rights in the upper house circulates every few years but has failed to attract serious governmental support, and voting rights at general elections or referendums have not even been given any serious attention. Portugal provides a direct contrast in that it enfranchised its large global diaspora in 1974. Representatives for the emigrant community were first elected in 1976. Using a most different case study approach, this article makes two specific contributions. First, it explores the attitudes of resident and non-resident Irish and Portuguese voters to external electoral rights (voting and candidacy). Second, it discusses a key concern from the field of diaspora voting: swamping. This refers to the potential for a large diasporic community to alter the course of an election by ‘swamping’ the democratic preference of the resident electorate. With their large global diasporas, Portugal and Ireland provide perfect tests of attitudes to swamping. The article uses data from a cross-national study collected from January to April, 2023 and conducted among resident and non-resident Irish and Portuguese voters.