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Tell Government Your Overseas Voting Experiences!
The Australian Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM) is presently conducting an inquiry into the 2007 Federal Election. This is your chance to make your voice heard on voting and electoral matters as an overseas Australian, whether you voted in the 2007 election or not. Make a submission by the deadline of Friday 16 May 2008 using our e-mail submission template. We set out some ideas for your submission here.
Voting in Countries Where You Are Not a Citizen
Read our "What You Need to Know About Voting in Australia While You Live Overseas" brochure now. Download an A4 version here, and a US letter size paper version here.
For important current information on voting and enrolment, and links to the
AEC website, as well as a summary of the SCG's advocacy work on the expat
disenfranchisement issue to date, go
to this page of our site.
Voting by Australians Resident in the UK
The best-known example of this impacting Australians overseas is Britain.
There are probably between 200,000 and 300,000 Australians in the UK at any
point in time. Under the Representation
of the People Act 2000, any citizen of the Commonwealth legally resident
in the UK, 18 years of age or over, can vote in British elections.
Voting by Certain British Subjects Resident in Australia
Under the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 a person who has attained
18 years of age and is not an Australian citizen may still be able to vote
under Section 93(1). The requirements are that the person would, if the relevant
citizenship law had continued in force, be a British subject within the meaning
of that relevant citizenship law. Their name must also have been on the Electoral
Roll immediately before 26 January 1984.
Voting by Permament Residents in New Zealand
If you are not a New Zealand citizen, but a permanent resident of New Zealand,
you qualify to enrol to vote if you are 18 or over, and have lived in New
Zealand for one year or more without leaving the country. In fact, you must
enrol to vote if you are qualified to vote. For more information see the Elections
New Zealand website.
Voting by EU Citizens Resident in Other EU Member States
Since Section 17 of the Australian Citizenship Act 1948 was repealed, with effect from 4 April 2002, many Australians who live in European Union countries are now becoming naturalised citizens in their countries of residence. Further, the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 provides some 100,000 in the diaspora, many in EU countries with an EU citizenship, with a new right to apply for Australian citizenship and thereby become dual citizens. There are also many Australians who are dual citizens with an EU citizenship by descent or by birth.
If you hold the citizenship of a Member State of the European Union, then you are not just a citizen under the laws of that country, but you are also an EU citizen under EU law. The concept of EU citizenship was first introduced by the Treaty on European Union, otherwise known as the Maastricht Treaty, signed in 1992. Citizenship of the European Union brings with it a number of important privileges. Click here to explore what citizenship of the EU means.
On voting, Article 19 of the EC Treaty gives all citizens of an EU Member State the right to vote and stand as a candidate in elections to the European Parliament and local elections in the Member State in which they reside - whether they have its nationality or not - under the same conditions as apply to nationals of the country of residence. Such rights are an application of the principle of equality and non-discrimination between Union citizens from the home country and abroad. They supplement the right laid down in Article 18 of the EC Treaty to freedom of movement and residence. The main purpose of Article 19 of the EC Treaty is to abolish the nationality condition that most Member States had previously attached to exercise of the right to vote or stand as a candidate. Its aim is to improve the integration of Union citizens in their host country.
EU-level legislation, in the form of Council
Directive 94/80/EC of 19 December 1994, lays down detailed arrangements
for the exercise of the right to vote and to stand as a candidate in municipal
elections by citizens of the Union residing in a Member State of which they
are not nationals. The European Commission can take EU Member States to task
for not implementing the Directive into their national legislation. This it
did with Greece and Germany in mid-1999.
More Information
Other pages in the Overseas Voting section of our website will be of further help:
· Overview
· Current Limitations
in the Law
· Are You Disenfranchised?
· Help Us Extend the Right
to Vote
· Direct Representation
for an Overseas Electorate
· Voting in Countries
Where You Are Not a Citizen
· Statistics
and Reports on Overseas Voting
Further documentation can be found in the Overseas Voting folder of our Archives.
