The constitutions of many countries guarantee the right to vote for all citizens. However, in reality, voters who are outside their home country when elections take place are often disenfranchised because of a lack of procedures enabling them to exercise that right. Voting from Abroad: The International IDEA Handbook examines the theoretical and practical issues surrounding external voting. It provides an overview of external voting provisions in 115 countries and territories around the world, including a map illustrating the regional spread.

This book discusses how the extension of voting rights beyond citizenship (i.e., to non-national immigrants) and residence (i.e., to expatriates) can be interpreted in the light of democratization processes in both Western countries and in developing regions. It does so by inserting the globalization-specific extension of voting rights to immigrants and expatriates within the long-term series of historical waves of democratization. Does the current extension enhance democracy by granting de facto disenfranchised immigrants and emigrants political rights or does it jeopardize the very functioning of democracy by undermining its legitimacy through the removal of territorial and national boundaries? The book offers a preliminary synthesis in a broad comparative perspective covering both alien and external voting rights in Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. It shows that reforms toward more expansive electorates vary considerably and that their effects on the inclusion of migrants largely depend on the specific regulations and the socio-political context in which they operate. The book was originally published as a special issue of Democratization.