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Symbolism of extending the presidential franchise is vast

Without the right to vote for president, those born north of the Border are deemed less Irish than those a stone’s throw away

Under its Diaspora Strategy the Government has committed to holding a referendum on extending presidential voting rights to Irish citizens resident outside the State. Such a vote would mark the third referendum of significance in the past decade following the referendums for equal marriage and repealing the Eighth Amendment. As with the previous two referendums, this vote serves as a touchstone moment for Ireland as the country and its people continue unburdening themselves of the weighty shroud of conservatism which long enveloped Ireland’s history.

There is nothing controversial about citizens who reside outside a state retaining a right to vote. According to the 2021 IDEA global democracy report, 125 states and territories allow people living abroad to participate in elections. In a European context, Ireland has the strictest rules limiting emigrant voting, being the only EU member state to deny any form of voting for its citizens outside its borders, be that at a European, presidential or parliamentary level.

This referendum is not for the Dáil or Seanad, this is specifically about extending presidential voting rights to Irish citizens in the North of Ireland and abroad. The president of Ireland holds a largely ceremonial office and represents the Irish nation, not merely those Irish citizens who happen to have been born and reside within the 26 counties. The president stands as a symbolic representation and personification of all Irish citizens, and each and every one of them deserve a say as to who the emblematic embodiment of their nationality should be.

Ireland has endured a painful history, and as a result, generations of Irish citizens have been forced to seek opportunity and sanctuary abroad through no choice of their own. In 1922, countless Irish citizens were de facto abandoned in the North, and further back, generations were lost to the Famine. The Civil War forced more abroad, and more recently, the 2008 financial crash saw a new generation of Irish mammies losing their children to opportunity and prosperity only afforded elsewhere. Many of those who left remained deeply attached to Ireland, so much so that many of those who recently emigrated as a result of Ireland’s housing crisis and lack of employment opportunities still opt to come back, with 2021 seeing 30,200 emigrants returning.

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In the northern context, extending the presidential franchise will be an enormously symbolic gesture.

It is one small act with a significant personal impact for Irish citizens who for too long have been marginalised. While within the State, those Irish citizens fortunate enough to be on the “right” side of the Border have been able to embrace an Irish identity freely and openly, Irish citizens in Northern Ireland instead have endured generational violence, threats, mockery, and degradation – two very different histories for one shared nationality on one shared island. There is a great deal of pain and a sense of abandonment still rippling through Irish communities in the North, and though extending the franchise won’t cure it, it would be a statement of intent that the North will not be left behind again.

As the likelihood of a vote becomes more viable, misinformation continues to rear up within particular social circles in the Republic, such as conflating the Irish-American diaspora with eligible Irish citizens or crudely and incorrectly trying to link taxation to voting rights. Many will have witnessed democracy in action in Dublin recently when thousands of Brazilian citizens lined the streets to proudly cast their ballot for their president – enfranchising citizens outside the state is a global democratic norm.

Anxieties over “swamping”, whereby the overseas vote-share overtakes the domestic vote, have been parroted by those fearful and condemnatory of extending this basic democratic right from the outset, regardless of the overwhelming evidence debunking any such potentiality. Voting from abroad is a process which requires no small degree of time and effort. Typically only those still significantly sociopolitically engaged will remain motivated enough to dedicate that energy towards registering or participating. For example, in the Mexican presidential elections in 2018, approximately 12 million Mexicans living abroad were eligible to vote, while only 181,873 citizens registered to vote, and ultimately a mere 98,470 citizens actually cast their vote – a grand total of 0.8 per cent of the eligible overseas vote share. In the Republic, voter turnout for the 2018 presidential election capped at 43.9 per cent.

But this referendum isn’t about numbers, it is about a moral question – one which challenges every Irish citizen in the State to interrogate their own preconceived notions, biases or prejudices and to ask themselves: what kind of society do we believe befits Ireland’s increasingly progressive future?

Is it one which remains a global outlier with its exclusionary perception of Irishness, whereby those arbitrarily born on any one side of a vague geopolitical Border imposed upon the island of Ireland 100 years ago are deemed more or less Irish than those a stone’s throw away? Where young Irish graduates forced to move to London or further afield because they can’t find an affordable home in the State are to be cast aside as some sort of second tier Irish citizen? Or do we aspire towards a society that can transcend the harsh conservative trappings of the past in order to embrace a more global, more inclusive concept of what it means to be Irish?

It can be enormously challenging for the best of us to remain consistently cognisant of our ingrained and often subconscious biases or prejudices. We all carry some form of either – to varying degrees. For those resistant to the increasingly progressive and future-focused trajectory the Republic has been on, this referendum’s potential to further disrupt the status quo to which they feel entitled will be deeply uncomfortable. There are arguments to be heard on all sides in a healthy democratic process, enabling citizens to make informed decisions at the ballot box. But what this debate desperately needs is a fact-based discussion rooted in evidence, not misinformation, demonstrably inaccurate stereotypes or regressive rhetoric.

Emma de Souza is a writer and is northern spokesperson for votingrights.ie