The bill of the Ministry of the Interior with Title “Election of MEPs, facilitation of voters through postal voting, clearing of electoral rolls and other provisions of the Ministry of the Interior” gives, for the first time, the possibility to all Greeks, regardless of their place of residence, whether inside Greece or abroad, to exercise their right to vote, starting from the upcoming European elections but also in any future referendathrough a postal vote.

More specifically, with the bill on postal voting in the European Elections and Referendums:

  • The landscape of expatriate voting is changing, but also the landscape for voters in Greece.
  • It is an essential move to strengthen participation in the electoral process. Following the 2014 European elections which saw a record low voter turnout, the European Union encouraged Member States to adopt, among other things, postal voting to increase turnout.
  • The possibility of increasing participation implies a broadening and deepening of the Democracy, as it becomes more representative. The election results reflect the views of more citizens and social groups, who for reasons, financial or objective, may have had practical difficulties in participating in the process.
  • The State is modernizing, keeping up with more modern institutional procedures, responding to European recommendations, adopting good public administration practices and making use of international experience, adapting it to the country’s conditions. 22 of the 27 EU member states have some form of postal voting, as do Australia and the US States, with variations.

Through a simple and safe process, for which strict security safeguards have been provided based on good practices which have been adopted by other countries that have been applying the postal voting system for a number of years, the exercise of their right to vote is significantly facilitated for both foreign residents and a number of categories of our fellow citizens, such as seasonal workers, day workers of the European elections, people with disabilities, people with mobility problems, students taking exams, students taking pan-Hellenic exams, seniors, etc.

Listed are prescribed process safeguards:

  • Application with taxis codes, a password will come to confirm identity.
  • The voter will indicate the address to receive the envelope.
  • The voter can follow the process of sending the envelope.
  • The envelope is registered and delivered personally to the voter unless there is express authorization for someone else.
  • An identification procedure is provided for during voting as well.
  • The envelopes bear features of authenticity.
  • The voting file is completely anonymized.
  • Separation of affidavit and ballot / voting file.
  • Judiciary Committee
  • Archival material at the Court of First Instance
  • The area is guarded by ELAS and closed circuit television.

The bill was put up for public consultation on December 28, 2023 and remained posted for two weeks, garnering just 96 comments, most of which related to suggestions for further improvement of the bill, indicative of the public acceptance of the government’s particular legislative initiative.

Subsequently, it was submitted for processing to the competent committee of the Parliament on January 15which was completed on the 19th of the same month.

During the discussion one was reached broad consensus, receiving the support of groups of representatives of the diaspora as well as the support of the majority of the partieswhich number more than 230 deputies, a rare fact for our parliamentary data.

The climate of consensus was also significantly strengthened by the government, with the Ministry of Internal Affairs accepting a series of observations submitted by organizations and parties, which incorporated into the bill that was introduced on January 22 in the Plenary of the House for a vote.

Specifically:

  1. Added explicit references to personal data protection issues in articles 8, 10, 15 and 36 (Personal Data Protection Principle).
  2. The specifications of the mandatory interpretation in sign language (window on 1/6 of the screen) of pre-election messages and interviews of political leaders (Federation of the Deaf of Greece) were specialized.
  3. It was foreseen that pre-election messages will be accompanied by sign language interpretation and subtitling (Pleisi Eleftherias, Federation of the Deaf of Greece, Association of Greek Sign Language Interpreters).
  4. It was stipulated that the authorization of a third party to send the return envelope is done exclusively and only in the case of the voter’s inability to send the envelope himself (PASOK, Free Shipping).
  5. It was expressly provided that the ballots of the members of the Electoral Committees for the Selection of Postal Votes are identical to the ballots of the postal vote, in order to ensure the secrecy of the vote (SYRIZA).
  6. For the national referendums, the finalization day of the special electoral lists of postal voters was changed to the day after the day of the issuance of the relevant presidential decree (Parliament Scientific Service).
  7. A ministerial decision was foreseen that defines in detail every technical detail of the process as well as the one concerning the electoral lists of voters whose files were not received within the deadline (SYRIZA).
  8. A greater time proximity was provided between the mailing of postal vote envelopes and the date of the election (Parliament Scientific Service).

Taking into consideration the climate of consensus that was formed, the fruitful dialogue that preceded it with institutions and parties, as well as the widespread demand of the Greeks in the diaspora to extend the application of the measure to the national elections, Mrs. Kerameos filed an amendment on January 22, which extends the postal vote to the national elections for Greeks abroad.

That is, why a Greek living abroad can vote by letter in the European elections but to have to take the plane for 3 hours to vote in the national elections?

It is clarified that in order to approve the bill, i.e. the postal vote for the European elections, a simple majority is required, i.e. the vote of 151 MPs, while on the contrary the amendment, i.e. the letter for Greeks abroad in the national ones, requires an increased majority of 2/3 of the Parliament, i.e. the vote of 200 MPs.

With reference to the question raised in the public debate, why the amendment concerns only the Greeks abroad and not the domestic votersthe answer is found in article 51, paragraph 4 of the Constitution under the title “Election of deputies, electoral right” in which explicit provision is made only for out-of-state voters.

This article states the following: Parliamentary elections are held simultaneously throughout the Territory. A law passed by a majority of two-thirds of the total number of deputies may define the matters related to the exercise of the right to vote by voters who are outside the Territory.

As for these voters the principle of holding elections simultaneously does not prevent the exercise of their right to vote by mail or other appropriate means, as long as the counting and announcement of the results is carried out whenever this is done and throughout the Territory.