RedCelt69 wrote:My parents were economic migrants.
So are mine. And so am I. Different countries, different reasons, and both my parents and myself are looking forward to moving back to Scotland whenever circumstances allow.
For my own part, I am immensely frustrated that I may be out of the country and thus incapable of voting in any Scottish independence referendum that may happen. I had resigned myself to this, but this thread got me thinking: in the modern era, what level of interest should you need to have a say in how a democratic country is run? What about if you are paying taxes primarily in that country? What if your main source of income comes from that country? What if you have a (government or private) pension coming from that country? What if you are in the country on a temporary or student visa? What if you are a foreign national with a residency permit? How long do you have to be in a country to be eligible to vote? Should all the above categories have an equal vote to someone who is a permanent resident?
Allow me to test the water with the example of my parents. They arrived in Australia (where voting is compulsory) a week before a general election. They had no idea who the parties or their policies were (arguably this could be their fault, but this was in the days before the Encyclopaedia Internetia). Should their vote have counted as much as an Australian's? They are now resident in Portugal, but continue to receive a UK pension. Should they still be eligible to vote in UK elections (which govern their income)?
Here's a suggestion I've been mulling over: a person can cast a single vote for their country of residency. If they move country, they can either choose to take that vote with them, or transfer that vote to their destination country. One person, one vote, one country. Should be relatively easy to police - in Europe if nowhere else. On the other hand, if only 0.2% of expats vote, then it's fairly inconsequential (especially without AV) whether they have the vote or not: we might as well let those who want to.
...then again, that is only my opinion.