'The dreaded [Italian] voting abroad issue has returned': the shifting Australian Government policy towards expatriate voting

In recent years there have been a growing number of countries pushing to enfranchise their citizens living permanently abroad (Spiro 2006: 214). Some countries have created ad hoc expatriate constituencies and representation in their national parliaments (Kull 2008: 462-463). Italy, for instance, altered its legislation governing the vote to Italian expatriates in the early 2000s. New legislation saw Italian citizenship holders living abroad granted the right to postal voting and parliamentary representation in Italian elections and referendums. The new legislation made the exercise of overseas voting accessible to all eligible voters through postal voting (2.9 million at the latest general election of 2008), created an overseas constituency divided in four vast electoral colleges (eg. a. Europe, b. South America, c. Central and North America, d. Africa-Asia-Oceania- Antarctica) and provided for representation for the Italian Parliament (12 members of the Chamber of Deputies and 6 Senators). Since 2003, Italian nationals resident abroad aged 18 or older (25 or older for Senate elections), including dual citizenship, ancestry citizenship (by descent) and naturalised (by marriage or adoption) Italians, were eligible to vote for Italian elections (2006 and 2008) and referendums (2003, 2005, 2006, and 2009). [Introduction]