External voting: mapping motivations of emigrants and concerns of host countries.

• Author: Mencutek, Zeynep Sahin

Introduction

External voting denotes procedures which enable some or all electors of a country who are temporarily or permanently abroad to exercise their voting rights from outside the national territory. (1) The term is used interchangeably with absent voting, absentee voting, external enfranchisement, diaspora voting or out-of-country voting. Many countries enable external voting through general provisions in their electoral laws. Additional regulations on its implementation are often administered by legislatures or electoral commissions. (2) Postal voting, e-voting, voting by proxy, voting in diplomatic missions or military bases, or other designated places are main options utilized by home states. Countries either choose one of these options or use different combinations of them. (3)

External voting has emerged as a field of research in the last two decades due to many intertwined factors. First of all, growing cross-border migration has produced populations that are excluded from politics in both their home countries and their countries of residence. Many countries of origin have tried to develop some means to grant them political rights and secure their political participation. More than 115 of the world's 214 countries have allowed external voting for nationals abroad. (4) Recent additions include Ecuador (2008), Egypt (2011) and Libya (2012). In many other countries, that have no system of placing ballot boxes abroad, non-residents are able to vote if they fly to their country of origin such as in Lebanon, India, Zimbabwe, Israel, and Malta. So, granting external voting rights has virtually become a worldwide practice and an international norm. Meanwhile, the interest of migration scholars in transnational political participation has intensified and greatly contributed to knowledge on external voting practices. Existent scholarship provides general explanations for external voting introduction by emphasizing that contextual, country specific factors concerning the history and nature of the relationship between home states and emigrants usually influence its initial introduction and nature of systems. (5)

The arguments supporting external voting are related to the democratic principle of universal suffrage. It is considered that external voting guarantees the political rights of the citizens. It increases political participation given the fact that citizens living abroad are excluded from political life in their host countries and increasingly demand to exercise their right. (6) Their participation makes the home country's political system more inclusive and enhances its legitimacy. Thus, external voting is approached as a critical contribution to democratization. (7) Furthermore, it can be viewed as a reflection of government's political/pragmatic intention to maintain close ties between emigrants and home states. (8) As Lafleur notes, external voting is a part of broader diaspora policies in which states develop external citizens mainly to benefit from emigrants as a source of support. (9) Some other home state motivations' include the symbolic acknowledgement of emigrants' contribution to the home country, the presence of a party which sees political advantage in doing so and emigrants' campaigning for its introduction.

Arguments against the introduction of external voting are related to territoriality of citizenship rights and difficulties in managing the process, as well as the possibility of low-turnout versus higher cost compared to in-country voting. A traditional republican position conceives polity as something that is drawn by territorial and membership boundaries. Voting rights is an exclusive privilege of citizens who are present in the polity, in other words, requiring residency inside the state territory. (10) It is argued that those individuals who bear the consequences of their electoral decisions should be entitled to vote. In the cases of countries who have a huge number of external voters, if they are long term non-residents, their preferences might be decisive and binding for citizens residing inside the state territory. Domestic public may consider such a high political impact over their life as illegitimate. For example, it may be the case that the pattern of political support among external voters differs significantly from that among domestic voters as observed in Yugoslavia in the 1995 election. (11) Another counter argument emphasizes that external voting implementations involve many technical and administrative problems. They may challenge the main principles of elections, including the organizing of free and fair elections, the transparency of voting procedures, the freedom and fairness of party competition, and the problem of judicial review of elections held abroad. (12) Furthermore, cost per vote is higher outside the country, and it is higher when the population is widely dispersed. (13) Another challenge is the assignment of external electors to electoral districts. It is politically very important as it largely decides the extent to which external voters can influence domestic politics. (14)

As a middle ground, Rainer Baubock introduces the stake holder citizenship approach. He proposes that external voting should be granted to temporary absentees and conflict-forced migrants, but should be ruled out for generations born abroad because the latter category has no stake in their parents' countries of origin. In terms of representation, he is in favor of reserved seats for emigrants in parliament because it may diminish the impact of external voting where it could otherwise overwhelm domestic self-government. (15)

Despite advances in scholarship on external voting, few studies (16) so far have tried to explain why emigrants take part in home country elections abroad. It is important to understand, citizens' motivations and expectations for casting their vote in an election of a country where they no longer reside permanently, given the fact that an extra-territorial location changes the way in which citizens build a relationship with their home state. (17) Additionally, host states' concerns and responses to external voting might be decisive for its implementation. The following study may provide some insight to fill the gap in the literature. As a late comer, Turkey joined the countries that implemented the external voting system in 2014 with its first presidential election. The three interrelated research questions driving this study can be summarized as follows: What are the motivations and the expectations underlying Turkish migrants' voting abroad? To what extent do emigrants' perceptions about citizenship, nostalgia, or demand for active involvement in homeland politics play a role in their participation? What do emigrants think about host states' approach to their voting and the after-effects of voting in their country of residence?

This paper first attempts to shed light on the background to and implementation of external voting, then moves onto analyze the driving forces for emigrants to cast their vote. Host countries' responses and concerns will be examined by focusing on Germany which hosts nearly 1.5 million Turkey's electorate. The article will end with some tentative conclusions.

External Voting Experience of Turkey

Turkey has a population of over 75 million, with emigrants constituting around seven to eight percent. A considerable number of these hold Turkish citizenship, making them external voters. According to the 2014 official records, there are 52,692,841 registered voters within Turkey and 2,789,726 registered voters residing abroad, constituting five percent of the total electorate in Turkey. (18) Two and half million (85.8 percent) of registered voters abroad reside in eleven Western European countries. There are reportedly around 1.5 million Turkish citizens eligible to vote in Germany, 600,000 in France, 450,000 in the Netherlands, 270,000 in Austria and nearly 200,000 in Belgium. (19)

The first provision for external voting was placed on the agenda by the Constitutional amendment introduced by the coalition government on July 23, 1995. In principle, this granted Turkish citizens abroad the right to vote at general elections and referendums. However, it required additional provisions in electoral legislation in order to determine applicable measures for voting abroad. In the mid-1990s, public discussions continued about the importance of external voting and possible applicable measures without finalization. The head of the Supreme Board of Election Committee (SBE) proposed voting by mail. Voters residing abroad have been in favor of a mail option due to its lower cost and its practicality, and they made their voices heard through printed media. (20) The necessary legal provision determining the applicable measures was not introduced until 2008. Nevertheless, voting at custom gates at airports and border crossing points some time before the election dates were made available to emigrants. The number of people who were able to vote remained limited. The amount of votes cast were only five to seven percent of eligible overseas voters.

In 2008, five new articles on 'Voting methods and general principles of voters abroad' were added to the Election Law. (21) Voters abroad were allowed to cast votes in general and presidential elections as well as in referendums. The law states that: the SBE consulting with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs decides whether voting at ballot boxes, at customs, by mail, and e-voting would be used according to the conditions of the host country. The Constitutional Court annulled the voting by mail option in the same year after an application by the main opposition party, the Republican People's Party. It was claimed that voting by mail contradicts the principles of secrecy and independence in elections and is against the Turkish Constitution.

Online voting has been found to be very complex. Hence voting at...