Please sign this petition
The Times today carries an article about overseas voting for Maltese people who work or study abroad. The current situation is absolutely ridiculous, with people having to fly in to Malta to vote.
It is not just the cost of the flights (and you can’t get a subsidised Air Malta flight from just anywhere), but also the time, trouble and arrangements that people have to make. The vote isn’t a favour. It’s both a right and an obligation, and the state shouldn’t insist on dragging people over to Malta to fulfil it when there are other options today.
The government is talking about embassy voting, but even that is not enough. Maltese people are now scattered temporarily all over the world. Even in Europe, you can be a day’s travel away from your nearest embassy. There might not even be an embassy in the country you’re living in.
In this day and age, and with thousands of Maltese citizens now working in so many different places (and with Malta priding itself on leading in IT) it’s time to think in terms of electronic voting with an e-ID. If it’s safe enough for banking, it’s safe enough for voting.
Prime Minister Gonzi told The Times that his government and party support overseas voting, and that it is the Opposition Labour Party which derailed talks on the matter over the last couple of years.
The Labour Party has a very serious control-freakery problem which is the opposite of progressive and liberal. Perhaps it’s main concern is that the sort of Maltese who are buzzing round working and studying outside Malta are not likely to be voting Labour. Maybe they’re right, but maybe they’re wrong.
In any case, it’s no excuse for this outdated attitude to carry on.
The link to the article and to the petition are on the comments-board below.
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130110/local/gonzi-blames-labour-for-no-voting-abroad.452594
http://www.change.org/petitions/make-an-absentee-ballot-system-a-key-part-of-the-2013-election-campaign
My family live abroad for quite the greater part of the year.
If I sign that Labour will probably apply to rescind my right to vote. Maybe I will get away with it this election, but next time, I’m buggered. It is awkward down to fly to Malta to vote, but at least at the moment I can.
In other words, thanks, but no thanks
My point exactly. Even with the Airmalta special fare, it will cost my family at least £500 to allow my wife and myself to come over for 3 or 4 days (excluding vacation leave) but I’d rather pay up then give a target to the MLP for next time.
I’m now waiting for the first idiot to say that people who don’t pay tax in Malta shouldn’t be allowed to vote anyway.
Wait no longer!
But why is someone who questions a non-resident’s right to vote an “idiot”?
It seems that your point of view stems from a sense of entitlement more than any reasoned argument.
There are people who have not been resident in, or paid taxes in, Malta for over ten years (and more) who are still are on the electoral register.
Many of these people do not have any plans to resettle in Malta with the next five-year electoral term or at any point in the forseeable future.
If you can answer without recourse to insults, how do you reason that someone who will not be effected by the outcome of these elections has the same right to vote as someone who is a full-time resident who pays taxes in Malta?
Your opinion is surely in no way influenced by the fact that most Maltese living abroad are known to be Nationalist voters?
Your whole position is basically the normal Nationalist setting: this is the way things are, if you disagree you are an idiot. When will you wake up and realise how much your arrogance has cost the Nationalist Party? Will March 10th be the day you finally realise it?
xalataboy: If you have emigrated to Brussels and expect that you should have the same right to vote , than ALL Maltese living in Australia, Canada, USA etc.. have as much right as you. And the PL will remain in government till eternity ! What’s good for the goose in Brussels, should be good for the gander elsewhere , even in Australia, Canada etc.. !
Isma minn Eddy Privitera ghax jifhem hafna.
Labour in government till eternity!
1996 – 1998 22 months.
Ask Alfred Sant.
Mela skond Privitera it-tifla ta’ Varist, Kevin u Sharon EB m’ghandomx dritt jivvutaw.
Lejn il-Kanada u L-Awstralja l-emigranti baqghu imorru anki fi zmien Mintoff – m’hemmx ghalfej nghidlek li kienu Nazzjonalisti.
If you sign, you might not need to fly down to Malta at all.
It is beyond ridiculous to refuse to sign a petition and to write in explaining why you won’t.
Labour can’t rescind your right to vote just because you receive your love letters at an address outside Malta.
La Redoute
The word ‘might’ that you used in your first sentence already answers your point.
You may use the conditional, but where there is Labour, there is only a certainty, the certainty that they will file an application to stop each and every one they manage to identify who may be in a similar situation.
So sorry, my concerns are far from being ridiculous. And I urge all those in a similar position to refrain from signing.
Yes, you are being ridiculous. ‘Might’ means exactly that. You might get the chance to vote from abroad, i.e. IF an absentee voting system is brought in.
If you live abroad, the parties already know that because there are spies in every street. Maybe Labour haven’t tried to have you struck off because they think you vote for them.
‘You might get the chance to vote from abroad, i.e. IF an absentee voting system is brought in.´
MIGHT get the chance, as opposed to WILL vote (with a bit of hassle, true.)
Your ‘might’ implies an uncertainty, my ‘will’ on the other hand, is, so far, a sure thing.
There is no way Labour would mistake my voting preference, I can assure you. BTW, the street leaders can quite often be an issue, but there are ways to circumvent them. And if you can’t think how, that’s your problem.
So who is being ridiculous?
Vanni:If you have EMIGRATED and you no longer pay any taxes in Malta. And thus, have settled abroad, sorry, you should not have the right to vote and decide the fate of the Maltese people still living in Malta, once you will not be affected.
Those working temporarily or studying abroad, still have the right to vote.Otherwise we would have hundreds of thousands of Maltese spread all over the globe, deciding which party is elected in Malta !
Eddy. What gives you and your feeble party the right to stop a person from voting? A vote is an inalienable right.
Yet the Labour Party files objections galore, because it is fears people who live abroad.
Can you explain what it is you are afraid of, Eddy? Also, in light of the European Union, I very much doubt if a person who resides anywhere in the EU can legally be discriminated against.
Define “emigrated”. Did Joseph Muscat “emigrate” when he left Malta to serve as an MEP in Brussels and Strasbourg? Are Maltese embassy staff emigrants? And Maltse EU personnel? This isn’t the 1950s.
I work for an EU agency, live most of my time away from Malta, but still own a house in Malta and spend more or less a couple of months every year in Malta.
I might not pay income tax here (today is my last day of an extended holiday), but I pay for utilities and I contribute to the economy by buying local and eating out and obviously pay VAT and other fees/taxes.
My children speak Maltese and might eventually join the University of Malta. I also don’t rule out working in Malta in the future. My wife is on parental leave from her Maltese job.
We are not temporarily abroad, but obviously have a strong interest in how Malta develops. So according to Eddy says we shouldn’t have a vote?
Eddy, I emigrated, yet I still pay taxes in Malta on income derived from real estate and other investments, in line with the double-taxation agreement between Malta and the country where I now live.
I am also a Maltese citizen and national, and have yet no voting rights in my country of residence.
Why on earth would you want to take away my vote?
If I ever had any doubt who to vote for, people like you remind me exactly why I should never vote for Labour.
The PL will never encourage overseas voting.
They know very well that the vast majority of Maltese working abroad have more than a handful of functional neurons.
Exactly. Except the Maltese Australians who emigrated in the 1950s of course.
[I await the torrent of negative response.]
Masochist.
G’day Sport.
No wurries.
I’ll chuck a shrimp on the barbie for you.
Crack a tube of amber.
It needs a repeat.
I think Joseph Carmel may have emigrated in the early 1970s. It must be why he’s been quiet.
Working temporarily abroad and working abroad because ONE HAS EMIGRATED, are two different matters altogether.
Oh god, go back to sleep. You’re so 1950s.
I see that PN candidate Charles Selvaggi has already signed the petition.
It all boils down to one thing really. Signing the petition means you truly support democracy.
If you have a vote, write to the candidates in your district and ask them to add their signatures. You can find a list of PN candidates here:
https://www.mychoice.pn/CampaignTools/Candidates/List
Well said.
I walk two blocks to vote and there are people who have to travel for hours to do so, and others whose obligations abroad prevent them from voting at all.
I think this is so unfair especially since there is an alternative.
Besides, not giving the opportunity to Maltese citizens abroad to vote might also determine my future as a Maltese citizen.
There are Maltese Mintoffjani married to foreigners and living abroad who still come to vote for the Labour Party.
Some of them have the sense to be ashamed to broadcast this but they do not have the common sense and decency to realise that if it makes them feel ashamed then they should not do it.
Whether one is a nationalist or PL supporter is immaterial. if they do not qualify to vote , they should not be allowed to vote !
[Daphne – Typical Labour: approaching it from the negative side. A Nationalist-minded person would have said: whether you are Nationalist or Labour, if you qualify to vote you should be allowed to vote.]
Eddy kemm ilkhom ma tohorgu jssawtu n-Nazzjonalisti?
‘outdated attitudes’ of this bunch just coming to the fore. Witness the innuendo on circumventing MEPA rules.
Can’t wait until the panic sets in. Clubs at 10 paces anyone?
100% in favour of a more convenient means of voting.
However, when you consider there are still people stealing/buying/selling votes – I do not feel we are in a position to consider electronic voting.
[Daphne – Electronic voting is 100% safe, probably safer than the standard means of voting.]
I particularly have my doubts with respect to for example blackmail – if other people can be in the room with you whilst you vote.
or threats, etc. for that matter.
People who would have the opportunity to vote electronically are unlikely to find themselves in a situation where someone in the room is trying to blackmail them.
What absolute tosh. What you’re saying is that the state should deprive 100s of people of their democratic right because someone’s father/mother/brother/sister/employer/loan-shark/take-your-pick might coerce ditto into voting against their will.
What makes you think they don’t do that anyway?
No – I just don’t think it is 100% safe. For the record I signed the petition and am in favor of the principles behind it.
My point is that the possibility of having someone else in the room when you vote online may further the opportunities for coercion.
There’s always someone else in the room when you vote.
You’re just used to the absurdity of our system which allows political parties to nominate commissioners who then police each other and to maintain a spy system that has ‘street leaders’ pester you with phone calls if you haven’t cast your vote by the afternoon.
Oh yes right. Like Labour or PN will send their beer-bellied thugs around London or Brussels to stand behind the expat fashionistas and yuppies as they tap away on their iPads.
Are you crazy?
There is someone in the room but not in the cubicle where you vote and I assume it would be the same in an embassy.
This is not necessarily the case if you can vote online at home.
Also, if you had to introduce e-id voting I would imagine you would introduce it across the board and not just for expats (although I stand to be corrected).
Besides, stranger things have happened in Maltese politics than the “Labour or PN [sending] their beer-bellied thugs around London or Brussels to stand behind the expat fashionistas and yuppies as they tap away on their iPads.”
Oh for god’s sake. Coercion can happen anywhere, in many ways, in anything. If this is the Repubblika ta’ Malta’s only excuse to rule out voting, then I despair.
I’d rather have the vote of twenty thousand coerced expat professionals than one free subliterate bigot who’s lived in Malta all his life.
If you can vote online, you don’t have to do so at home. We’ve come a long way since Brainiac.
Daphne – Can we have electronic voting with our Single Transferable Vote system?
I thought the actual ballots need to be in one central location to allow transfer.
Printing the vote that has been posted abroad in Malta could lead to confidentiality issues.
or threats, etc. for that matter
Wasn’t this one of AD’s messages?
I know someone who lives abroad for over 5 years and will come to vote.
Rabid Labour too.
Not to jump down your throat, but so what?
How do you know if he hasn’t got property in Malta? Or maybe a bank account, earning interest and taxed at source? Or shares?
Quite a few expats have investments in the islands.
Shouldn’t they have a voice in what may (as you know change is anethema to an investor, and a govermental change, especially from an established to an unproven captainancy, even more so) effect their investments?
A common bleat is that expats should not vote as they are not aware of what is happening in Malta. I can quite assure these people that it is the exact opposite. Expats keep a very close eye on what is happening in their country of birth.
One correction, and please keep the tax-paying reason out of the voting loop. If the guy has a bank account in Malta that is the only source of income, or shares in the Malta Stock Exchange, they have to earn him interest amounting to more than the income tax ceiling in order for it to be taxed at source.
The law has clear rules in respect of days spent in Malta prior to voting.
bystander: The law can be an ass.
Actually JM, if one is wise, one pays tax at source, naturally after making sure that Double Taxation agreements are in force, between Malta and his country of choice. It saves on complications.
It’s about time – I am an overseas voter myself as an American living abroad. Voting as an overseas voter is fine, as long as the system is well organised, and put in place weeks in advance. I send in my vote, and check online whether it has been counted.
Of course, by doing so I waive my right to a ‘secret’ vote. That is something that very few people in Malta would be happy to do.
I would be happy to sign such a petition when the requirement of residence in Malta during the last year previous to the elections is removed because this removal would give the right to all Maltese citizens to vote. What does Maltese citizenship mean without the right of suffrage? Many thousands of migrants and their descendants have been granted Maltese citizenship but not, in practice, the right to vote.
Done, and in full knowledge that this will benefit voters across the whole political divide
I think it is a good initiative.
I am also sick and tired of people mixing up the issues of the waste of funds for subsidised flights with the actual right to vote.
This is usually mixed in with “you don´t pay taxes here (or, nowadays, W&E bills) so you should not have the right the vote”.
As if this is all that counts. What about foreign policy? Pensions? Tax recognition? Usually, nationals living abroad are the first to be affected by any changes in foreign policy.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. If I could just translate it:
Jekk jitla’ gvern tan-nejk, l-ewwel li jaqghu ghan-nejk huma l-Maltin ta’ barra.
Dalli was bad enough, thank you very much.
Mind you, even that particular episode pales as to when one has to explain to one’s colleagues that you have to fly down to vote again cause Labour counted dead voters as having actively participated in a referendum.
You try to explain that particular logic.
See? If we had an absentee ballot system in place, you wouldn’t have to explain the logic to your colleagues.
And if your Aunt had balls, she’d be your Uncle
She’s dead, actually. Now go in the corner and feel ashamed.
@ La Redoute
Ashamed is a tad too far, however I do apologise.
Thanks!
I must say it is usually the other way round… very often I have nothing left to add after reading your comments.
It’s obvious why people living abroad tend to be hard core Nationalists, seeing that they don’t live in this country anymore. Otherwise, they would have drifted to other currents a long time ago.
[Daphne – Weep, just weep.]
Ara vera PP ta
Excuse the Maltese usage in what is an English language blog, but it looses somewhat in the translation
They’re not hardcore Nationalists but “floaters”. If you had any sense, you’d know. The hard core Nationalists, with gold chains, big bellies and a cherished maduma, are all safely on The Rock.
We had to leave our beloved homeland because of the hatred and rancor caused by that prick Dom Mintoff and his rabble.
I don’t forgive or forget even over half a century later, and will go more than out of my way to vote for the Nationalists come hell or high water, anything that will keep the Labour Party from achieving power.
I fear that by signing this petition I would be flagging my name to the PL and then they will try and remove my name from the electoral directory.
If you have the right to vote, you have a right to vote.
It would have made more sense to write in using your real name to rail against the PL anti-democratic behaviour. They’d beat a path to your door, begging for your vote.
Come on D! Are you serious here?
I use a pseudonym here and on learning of this petition I was hesitant at first. But then I thought of this blogger (and her alleged car incident) and I immediately realised what I had to do.
During the 80s when the political climate was so tense I believed that a ‘converted’ Labourite was worth 10 Nationalists. It was a time when it was our duty to stand up and be counted.
Surely that climate has changed (somewhat?) since 30 years ago! If anything we now live in an EU-member state.
Tridx inzabbab!
e-voting is vital, I believe.
A line has to be drawn somewhere. I have distant cousins abroad who never set foot on Malta, probably do not even know where it lies on a map, but are citizens of Malta by virtue of their parents being Maltese. And no, I do not want that they have the right to vote, cause it would be a travesty of democracy.
While PL may need to revise its rigid position somewhat, the PN’s argument that liberalising eligibility means strenghtening democracy is a fallacy. I think the Italians have a different list of candidates for Italians living abroad, and that is how Cassola got elected.
If eligibility is to be opened, a study need to be made, taking into considerations residency, work, study, property, consular services, duration etc., but surely not granting every citizen of Malta living abroad the right to vote. That is not democracy.
About the method, I am very sceptical about just electronic voting. Every vote has to be officially recorded, on paper. Many other modern countries require the vote to be sent by post. If done correctly, that may be very acceptable.
Malta’s population is small, and it has a sizeable population with official citizenship living abroad which is large compared to the resident population. When considering widening eligibility and the method of voting, one has to be careful about two things. Abuse, and unnecessary skewing by ‘overseas’ voting. Citizenship and interest alone, are not enough.
The funny thing is that Maltese citizens living abroad (studying, on medical treatment, working in an embassy, working on some oil rig) feel the duty to vote, while other Maltese, so called citizens, who probably have never lived abroad, want to stay home to spite Gonzi because they are fed up of him and want a change – whatever that may mean to them.
What would these stay-at-home voters do if the Electoral Commission withdraws their right to vote?
A long overdue message of thanks is due for helping us bring this to a wider audience. For what it’s worth, the Times published a letter I sent in a few weeks ago (before the pay wall was introduced).
The letter is available on:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130517/letters/Absentee-ballot-systems.470050
I’m obviously happy to send you a full draft if you’d like. (Matthew has been of great help in finessing our arguments).