Towards the Fairer and More Representative Electoral System for Non-Resident Voters

Magdalena Lesinska (University of Warsaw) is Assistant Professor in Centre of Migration Research at University of Warsaw (CMR UW). She was awarded a PhD in Political Science in 2006 at Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Wrocław. Her PhD thesis was devoted to the comparative analysis of political inclusion of the immigrants in Western European countries. She completed MA Program in Nationalism Studies in Central European University in Budapest (2002). In 2020, she obtained the postdoctoral degree (habilitation) in the discipline of political science on the basis of the scientific achievement: “Difficult relations – political relationship between the country of origin and the diaspora. Polish and Polish diaspora at the turn of 1989 and later” (University of Warsaw Press 2019). Bartłomiej Michalak (The Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń) Abstract: Although voting by non-resident citizens in national elections is the norm around the world, the electoral procedures employed vary greatly, with different results and implications. This article argues that special representation of non-resident citizens is the more appropriate solution for countries with large numbers of citizens living abroad. We present two sets of arguments to support this claim: of a normative nature (based on the ideas of representation, justice, democracy and active citizenship) and of an empirical nature (based on the example of Poland). In addition, we ask more specific questions about the triggers and brakes that determine the implementation of special representative systems. In our analysis, we focus on European countries with a special representation system, paying special attention to Lithuania, where special seats for Lithuanian citizens voting abroad have recently been introduced, and to Poland, which is treated in this study as a deviant case. It is an example of a country with an assimilated representation system, where votes cast abroad are counted for a specific constituency in the capital. The large increase in the number of non-resident voters over the last two decades has led to a debate on the possible modification of the external voting system in Poland on the grounds of its incompatibility with the principles of equality, proportionality and representativeness.