Formal coalition? Very weak minority government?

Charles III? William V?

As you can see, it’s not at all uncommon to allow some categories of non-citizen residents to vote in local and municipal elections, and in Europe, supranational elections. (missing from the list are municipalities of various sorts that provide for the right, including quite a few in the US). But occasionally national voting rights are granted as well. Somewhat intriguingly, Latin American countries are on the forefront when it comes to voting rights in national elections.

A fascinating subject. Apparently non-citizen voting rights used to be more common in the US and Canada, were largely stripped in a flurry of anti-immigration politics following WWI, and are slowly coming back.

For quality scholarly analysis, I recommend Ron Heyduk’s piece in New Political Science and David Earnest’s piece in World Politics. They’re both around 5 years old, I think.

Now of course Ireland is problematic given that we left the Commonwealth in the 1930s, but I think the idea is that so many of us emigrated, or were on the border etc. that Britain decided the old right should stand. Again – must be resident and registered, so no fly-by-nights.

Realistically, there’s not enough of us to swing an election either way, and certainly no-one is actively wooing the ‘Commonwealth vote’ so no-one is really fussed. And in fact, most of the Canuck’s I’m friends with here had no idea they were able to vote, so I’d say actual exercise of the right is quite modest.

Not to threadjack, but when I lived in England in 1987 and ’88 I was amazed that certain non-UK subjects living there could vote in elections (is it everyone who comes from a Commonwealth country or Ireland?).

What is the history and scope of this right? And it is at all controversial? If the US gave non-citizen Filipinos (to take the largest population of residents of a former US possession) the right to vote in national elections if they happened to be living in the US at the time, there’d be violent protests.

Long story short seems to be that LD support is nationally broadbased with no particular standout regions – as it has been in the past – but is rising everywhere, while the Tories are losing ground.

As an Irishman living in the UK (hence able to vote) my view on the situation is pretty simple. The whole narrative of Cameron never ‘sealing the deal’ has been proven substantially correct. The Tories seem to have, without knowing it, sleptwalk into an election where their entire lead was based on non ‘tribal’ voters deciding they were sick of Labour and the Tories were the only game in town. The debate more or less put paid to that, and they’re now totally screwed.

Moreover the usual arguments that a) they can’t win and b) the horrors of a hung parliament (!!!) aren’t working. Precisely because a hung parliament is a possibility the LDs can come out of the election with a majority of the votes and a minority of seats and still claim a moral right to govern – at the very least in coalition. And its not like Milliband et al. will have any scruples about knifing Brown in the back and giving Clegg and Cable the keys to No. 10 and 11 for a chance to remain somewhat in office.

Now, that is still of course unlikely. But the voters are smart enough to realise that Brown is toast unless he gets a majority, which isn’t gonna happen. And they’re perfectly happy to see a hung parliament and all it entails, including the possibility of Chancellor Vince Cable. And in the other corner, David Cameron is left holding a bannana, with a manifesto and election strategy based on an entirely different set of political circumstances than these.