Home > 1.2 Equal suffrage > Report on the compatibility of remote voting and electronic voting with the standards of the Council of Europe
 
 
 
Download file    
 
 
Paragraph 7
 

There are several aspects to the content of Article 3 of Protocol 1: its personal and substantive scope, the “legislature” and universal suffrage. In general, every person has the right to rely on the rights guaranteed by Article 3: nonetheless, the majority of Contracting States grant the right to vote only to nationals of the State in question. Article 3 refers to the “people” without clarifying the content of this term. However, in line with European constitutional tradition, “the people” is made up only of citizens of the State. The Court has specified that the scope of Article 3 of Protocol 1 extends to equal treatment for all citizens (ECtHR, judgment of 2 March 1987, Mathieu-Mohin and Clerfayt, series A 113, §54).