"As of 2020 a total of 141 countries grant expatriates the right to vote in elections in their countries of origin."
Before WWII, Hungary was much larger. After, a large portion was ceded to Romania. He used a sudden super-majority to grant those people the right to vote. Subsequently, his political party has even held political conferences in Romania.
Those Romanians are not Hungarian citizens. They mostly do not suffer the consequences Orban's policy decisions. Yet, they support him because he makes gestures to include them in the country of their cultural origin.
This is far different from allowing overseas voting. This would be like the UK allowing all Irish to vote in parliamentary elections.
I don’t see a big difference between that and Germany giving citizenship to all the people who were Germans prior to WW2, but weren’t after the war.
Those “Romanians” are absolutely Hungarian citizens, as it is a precondition to voting in Hungarian elections.
Until literally this year, the UK removed the right to vote after 15 years of living abroad, and Canada even used to restrict that right to just 5 years.
Even now, civilian US citizens living abroad whose intent to return to live in the US is uncertain or who don't intend to return, and Canadian citizens living abroad regardless of intent to return, are only federally guaranteed a right to vote from their last in-country address in federal elections, but often can't vote in state, provincial territorial, or local elections. This is true even if they retain significant ties to the relevant state, province, territory, or locality, like having close family there (including kids too young to vote for whom they're a legal parent), owning property there, operating a business there, or being owed a pension controlled by the relevant level of government.
And the guarantee of a right to vote from abroad in US federal elections is purely statutory, not constitutional - not to mention it has a few gaps in it, like citizens who have never lived in the US and neither of whose parents last lived in a state that allows the right to vote from abroad to descend to the next generation based on last parental residence.
Et cetera.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_citizenship
Anyone living for more than 15 years was denied the right to vote but not denied the right to have their citizen forcibly removed against their will.
Obviously you can't, because there's no such thing as EU citizenship. It doesn't grant citizenship, and cannot because that would require it to be an independent nation recognized by other nations as such. There is only citizenship of member states. Playing with words doesn't make something real, it only confuses people.
But the other commenter is also right that there is not the kind of independently existent EU citizenship that would persist when one ceases to be a national of an EU member state - it gets lost in that case even if the reason for this change is not an individual loss of the member state’s nationality but because the member state withdrew from the EU. The ECJ definitively settled this last year. Nor are EU passports issued on the basis of EU citizenship, nor would EU citizens typically include “EU” as one of the answers if they are asked by a government to list all their citizenships or view themselves as dual citizens if their only national-level citizenship is from a single EU member state.
For several reasons like this, it’s not at all unreasonable for the other commenter not to view EU citizenship as a real citizenship of its own, despite the use of the term under EU law.
Personally, I view the term EU citizenship in part as a briefer shorthand for “national of an EU member state” - including in the definition whatever edge-case handling is appropriate for each country’s special-case territories, and therefore more precise in a predictable way. Beyond that, it’s just a symbolic reflection of the EU’s official aspirational policy goal of ever closer union.
I don't know if you're double-trolling or not, but it's pretty dehumanizing rhetoric to say people who've left their country for work or other reasons are not real citizens and presumptively have no stake in their own country's future.
(It's even stranger you apply this kind of–nativist?–language to a member state of the EU, where transnational ties are a founding ideal of that anti-nationalist union..)
That is pretty standard for EU voting; as long as you are citizen, you can vote, usually by mail or by visiting your embassy.
Otherwise, I happen to agree with you -- why you should vote, if you don't feel the impact of your vote?
> the people in cities are not voting for him
That's the common occurrence, people in cities are easier to influence due to density; US also has the Rural-Urban divide.
> he gets the votes from uneducated people
Yes, this is what the (modern|progressive|educated|whatever) tell to themselves to fell on high horse in their bubble.
Very strange attitude. I voted while I was abroad for two decades, because my family and friends were still there, and I wanted the best from them.
Meanwhile, you are abroad and do not have clear idea about the local situation; you are going to have one of game of telephone one (I know, I also lived abroad for a while). As a result, you might do more damage than helping.
You're walking a path you're almost guaranteed not properly equipped for. Probably nobody is but knowing not to charge ahead would already mean a lot.
If having a clear idea about the local situation is a prerequisite then what happens with locals exposed to misinformation? Do they lose the right to vote? Do you test people in advance to evaluate their level of understanding? If they vote for populist measures that are clearly unsustainable did they show a good understanding of the situation?
What happens if you're abroad but coming back in a year and are expected to live with a bad situation you could have helped avoid? Can you claim "sorry, I wasn't allowed to vote so the rules don't apply to me"? What about when you live abroad but (some of) the laws of your home country in which you're not allowed to vote still apply to you?
And more importantly, if you're living abroad and you can't vote in your home country because you're away but you can't vote in your country of residence because you're a foreigner, what happens to your right to vote? This right is given to citizens of a country just like many other rights, like the right to private ownership. If one can be taken away due to lack of proximity, can the other? Can that car or house that you haven't used in a year be taken away? What if you as a local didn't exercise your right to vote, should it be taken away because you don't need it?
> you might do more damage
You might too.
Nobody ever even remotely suggested to go where you describe. That when you live abroad you are not familiar with local situation is a fact; you get to hear only partial, selected info. Maybe you should try it sometime. I did.
> What happens if you're abroad but coming back in a year and are expected to live with a bad situation you could have helped avoid? Can you claim "sorry, I wasn't allowed to vote so the rules don't apply to me"? What about when you live abroad but (some of) the laws of your home country in which you're not allowed to vote still apply to you?
Here, again on another track.
Nobody is ever going to figure out, when you live when you vote. The difference is showing up in the polling station inside the country or not. I.e. with not being able to vote via mail or embassy.
Again, in our country, we have several different elections (just like in other countries). But in some, you have to vote locally, in others, you can do via correspondence. So when all of them are local only, no harm done. If you can bring your ass to the polling station, that's enough. Nobody is taking your right to vote, it is on you to decide, whether it is worth to you to exercise your right, or not.
Right, the peasants with no education and only watching state TV are clearly the ones without a bias, their children that went to university, got a good job, know english are the one brainwashed by CIA/Israel and the evil LGBTQ. I read so many cases of educated Hungarians or Russians ashamed of the level of brainwashing of their parents.
Case in point; any discussion involving policits here, on hn. Politologs are face palming at the naivety, when they see an extract.
Latest link from my father was a clip from some TV channel where some pretend doctor was claiming something super vague that is scientifically incorrect, this time I ignored it since I was not in the mood to try to find evidence that the guy is not a real doctor, that the vague shit is bullshit and find scientific shit to clarify things, and all would need to be in Romanian so he can understand.
For this old generation if is on TV or internet and some scammer pretends is a doctor and uses a few medical words they will fall for it, is the same with politics especially blaiming bad stuff on various groups, that stuff works well on the internet.
Give me an example where your or a friend uneducated pessant parents were actually correct in this kind of topics then their educated children that know more languages and read more media.
For the parliamentary, it is here for a reason. To prevent voting touristic. The delay of several years -- you have to live several years in the other country -- serves exactly that.
I know about the local ones but it's not that important IMO.
I could go to the trouble of obtaining Spanish citizenship after 10 years but it is incredibly difficult and long.
I understand the problem of touristic voting but then they should let me vote here after 3 years or so.
Right now I can only vote for the Dutch government which I have nothing to do with in my life (and which is an extreme-right regime since the last election anyway)