Czechs abroad could vote by post in 2025 elections
A parliamentary proposal to allow Czech citizens who live abroad to vote by post in elections received strong backing from the Czech government on Wednesday. The government hopes that, if all goes well, Czechs abroad could vote by post for the first time in the 2025 general elections.
Currently, Czechs who live abroad and want to participate in elections have only one option – going to their nearest embassy to cast their ballot. But this can sometimes require a journey of hundreds or even thousands of kilometres, for example in large countries where there is only one embassy, says MP Marek Hilšer.
“For many of them, voting in elections means a journey of 2,000 kilometres to the polling station – and the presidential election often has two rounds. I think those people are discriminated against, to a certain extent, with regards to the universal right to vote.”
But the government hopes that with the introduction of postal voting, this obstacle would be removed, allowing the hundreds of thousands of Czech citizens who have permanent residence abroad to vote far more cheaply and conveniently. According to Hilšer, Czechs abroad represent a significant proportion of the electorate.
“Around 10,000 Czech students study at universities abroad every year. We have a large number of scientists working abroad and also a large number of people who are employed by Czech companies but live and work abroad. And these are all Czech citizens who are very eager to vote.”
The government hopes that postal voting could already be implemented in time for the 2025 parliamentary elections to the lower house – but Hilšer told Czech Radio that this is still highly uncertain. The bill still needs to get through parliament – and the opposition has already stated that it intends to obstruct it.
Both opposition parties, ANO and the Freedom and Direct Democracy party have voiced their disapproval towards the idea of postal voting, citing a potential threat to democracy and saying it goes against the constitutional rule guaranteeing that ballots are secret.
ANO MP and shadow interior minister Jana Mračková Vildumetzová further criticised the government for trying to institute postal voting in time for the 2025 elections without testing it out first.
“There are huge risks, primarily that there won’t be trust in the elections. If postal voting is going to have some validity and efficacy, then it should happen later, after a pilot project that could first show there is trust in elections with postal votes.”
She also criticises her incumbent counterpart, interior minister Vít Rakušan, for not consulting the opposition about the bill beforehand.
“The interior minister should have presented it as a government bill so that other people, especially experts from the legislative branch of government, could have had the opportunity to comment on it. I, for example, even as shadow interior minister, was never invited to any discussions on the topic where the proposal was presented to me.”
However, the coalition government counters that the main reason the opposition is against the move is that they have very little support among Czechs who live abroad.
Czechia is currently one of only four EU countries that still do not allow postal voting, the others being France, Croatia, and Malta.
