Amendment-addition filed by SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance on the issue of facilitating seasonal workers in exercising their right to votein the bill of the Ministry of the Interior to remove restrictions on registration in the special electoral lists of foreign voters.

The amendment is signed by the entire SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance parliamentary group, headed by its president Sokratis Famellos.

As emphasized in the Explanatory Report, of the proposed regulation “ensuring the real and effective exercise of the right to vote for all Greek citizens living in the country is a self-evident constitutional obligation of the Greek state, as their exclusion from the top democratic process on the basis of purely social and economic reasons finds no basis. Much more so to the extent that the Greek legal order, with Law 4648/2019, has already regulated the facilitation of the exercise of the electoral right of voters who live and have their interests outside the Greek territory (expatriates).

To a large extent, the above need has been met for the voters living within Greek territory through the institution of heterodominots, which has been introduced into the Greek legal order since 1998 (law 2623/1998). However, due to the deadlines provided by the current legislation for changes and the finalization of the electoral rolls, as well as the fact that the time of the elections is determined (with the exception of the European elections) usually on the day of their announcement, after which it is impossible to register in the special electoral rolls of non-residents, a large section of voters, specifically seasonal workers (e.g. in tourism, catering and agricultural and livestock holdings), but also temporary workers, who due to the nature of their work do not know in time the municipality where they will work on election day, are de facto excluded from exercising their right to vote.

With the proposed regulation, this obvious injustice is restored. The best way is to establish a special exception, for cases where national elections, European elections or a national referendum are held between April 1 and October 31, in which the above categories of workers will be able to vote upon their request at their place of work.

Especially in the case of holding national elections, care is taken so that -always respecting the conditions for protecting the secrecy of the vote- these voters to choose combinations and candidates of the basic district in the electoral rolls of which they are normally registered”.

“This arrangement is considered the most suitable for this particular category of workers based on the particularities of their situation,” the explanatory statement of the amendment concludes.