Irish presidential candidate wants to give expats the vote

If the Irish presidential candidate Jim Gavin hangs on the best office in the country in the national elections next month, this could open the way to citizens to vote for future presidential elections, regardless of where they live.

“In recognition of the unique role of the president representing the Irish people, I think that this right should be extended beyond the boundaries of the state,” said the party candidate Fianna Fáil at Irish Post during a campaign stop.

Gavin also promised to serve a single seven -year term and build a transparent inclusive government. Before going to politics, Gavin spent 20 years in the Irish Air Corps as a pilot and superior officer, after which he managed the Gaelic football team from Dublin to an unprecedented success from 2012 to 2019. Currently, Gavin is the best director of air security of the government.

Fianna Fáil, led by Prime Minister Micheál Martin, is the largest party in the Irish Parliament. Gavin is one of the many candidates of the whole political spectrum that will compete on October 24. At least 125 countries and territories offer a kind of access to voting to its expatriate citizens, according to Emma de Souza, spokesperson for the voting group of the diaspora-voting-advocacy group.

Ireland is one of the few countries, especially in the European Union, which restricts the vote only to residents, to minimum exceptions. According to the Charitable Trusts PEW, 88 countries in 2020 allowed expatriates to help choose a president and 124 authorized the external vote for the legislative elections. In the European Union, 23 in 27 countries extend voting rights for parliamentary elections.

The modification of the voting regulations requires a constitutional referendum, and the question has been beaten in both directions throughout many electoral cycles. The presidential candidates suspended the concept, only to inform. A referendum written in 2017 has never reached the ballot.

The call was renewed this year when a new government formed in January. Those who have a decision have been accused of having kept a lid on the global vote of fear for political repercussions, but supporters praise many potential advantages.

“There is no more conducive time than for the Irish government to deliver its extension of the franchise of our Irish Irish family,” said Irish Irish publisher Máirtín óuilleoir, a group of small businesses at a May meeting of the Irish business organization in New York. “With seven million people in Ireland and 70 million in the diaspora, no country has a more consecutive diaspora than Ireland.”