#12 Bureaucratic barriers to voting from abroad

I happen to be a Swiss citizen, and even though I live outside my country of birth, I get to vote regularly on a wide variety of topics, some of which I know little about. For instance, I wasn’t sure how to vote on a federal initiative to subsidize cattle growers who choose not to cut the horns off their cows. But I usually do vote, and the process is quite straightforward. I receive a ballot about two months before the day of the vote by regular mail. I cast my vote, sign a paper with my date of birth that I include in the envelope, and send my envelope by regular mail (I have to buy the stamp myself). I live in a European country with a functioning mail service, so my ballot should arrive on time if I send it about one week before the vote. It is much less certain for people living outside Europe who cannot be sure their ballot will arrive on time (I once posted a postcard to my parents from Argentina. It arrived three months later). There are, of course, discussions about electronic voting as the obvious solution to this, but it is not in place so far, notably due to concerns about hacking.

Usually, I feel that I have a say like my fellow Swiss citizens living in Switzerland, with a few strange exceptions. For instance, we have two chambers of parliament, one representing the “people” (the Nationalrat, a bit like the House of Representatives in the US), and one representing the cantons (the Ständerat, a bit like the Senate in the US). Each canton sends two (or one for small cantons) to the latter chamber. Because the mode of election of representatives in that chamber is a cantonal competence, I do not get to vote for the representatives of my canton in that chamber, while I do get to vote for the Nationalrat, because my canton has decided not to enfranchise citizens abroad in cantonal matters (even if in that case it’s to discuss national matters). Strangely, some other cantons do grant voting rights to citizens abroad in elections for that chamber. But I digress. Aside from these details, I do get to participate regularly and the process is reasonably straightforward.

I also happen to have a Portuguese passport. Here, my record of political participation as a citizen abroad is much ...