Might as well fly back home: thousands of Greeks abroad to miss out on vote
Apparently, there is such a thing as too few voters to make a ballot box worth it.
Greeks abroad have the opportunity to vote in their home country’s legislative elections for the first time this May. The requirements prevent many Greeks abroad from voting, as most would have to have filed tax returns in Greece in the past two years. After a slow start that saw only 120 people register to vote in the first six months, the number now exceeds 30,000 (out of whom 23,000 have been confirmed eligible). By comparison, over 325,000 Greek citizens live in Germany alone.
There is another factor which complicates the ability of Greeks abroad to exercise their right to vote: a minimum of 40 voters is required for a polling station to open in one of the cities that voters could register in. Last week, Greece’s interior ministry published a list of where people have to go to vote. In total, ballot boxes will be set up in just 35 of the 69 countries where Greeks abroad registered to vote. While there are several polling stations in Germany and the United States, there are few options for Greeks outside Europe, the Middle East and North America.
Every eligible Greek living in Central and South America has to fly north to Houston to exercise their newly found right to vote. Those in China have to make their way to South Korea, while Perth’s Greek community have a 37 hour road trip to look forward to on 20 May. Needless to say, democracy will come at a high price for those in places without enough voters.
Some choices seem ill-thought, such as the decision to send voters from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to Cairo. While Egyptair is now open about their flights to Israel (that wasn’t always the case), Skyscanner puts the price of a return flight for the vote’s weekend at 613 Euros. A day later, when those in Greece get to vote, a Tel Aviv-Athens flight sets a would-be voter a mere 140 Euros. Similarly, instead of telling voters in Gjirokastra to drive half an hour to get to the Greek border, the Interior Ministry is sending them to Sofia, Bulgaria (even though the quickest route between the two is through Greece itself.)
A minimum number of voters is not a normal requirement — 29 polling stations operated in Greece for fewer than 40 registered voters in 2019. Croatia, another country which allows its citizens to vote from abroad, operated 106 polling stations outside its territory. Unlike their Greek counterparts in May, embassies and consulates opened on that Sunday regardless of how many were expected to turn up. The ballot boxes in Tel Aviv and Ankara were used by one voter each, while nobody cast a ballot in Beijing. Overall, 36 polling stations saw fewer than 40 voters.
The cost of opening a diplomatic outpost on a Saturday seems smaller than the cost of a plane ticket to Houston. While the Interior Ministry hasn’t published a list of how many people registered where, a newspaper estimates the number of those who will miss out due to the distance between their residence and the polling station at 2,000. That’s nearly one in ten eligible registered voters abroad.
Affording some Greeks abroad the right to vote without flying home has been a deeply polarising experiment — one newspaper calling the diaspora a ‘ready pool of 800,000 voters’ for the ruling conservatives. Croatia, Italy, Hungary and others created a special constituency for their diasporas, ensuring their interests are represented but limiting their influence on the outcome. Greek voters abroad can instead affect the overall result, as their votes get counted together with those back home.
The low uptake, despite a promotional campaign and party organising, suggests the experiment is failing. For the 2,000 or more who live in smaller Greek communities, the promise of participation in their home country’s democracy was an empty one.
