Home > 3.2 Proportional systems > Report on Electoral Law and Electoral Administration in Europe
 
 
 
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Paragraph 255
 

As for PR systems at the national level, voting for citizens abroad is easy to manage since there is only a single nation-wide constituency. If electoral systems provide for single- or multi-member constituencies, however, it will be necessary to assign out-of-country voters to constituencies. Usually voters abroad are assigned to the constituency of their last place of residence (e.g. Germany) or they have their own out-of-country constituencies (e.g. Croatia, France, Italy, Portugal). In order to ensure the principle of equal suffrage, special attention must be paid to an even distribution of voters between in-country and out-of-country constituencies. This was, for instance, a problem in North Macedonia (CDL-AD(2016)032, para 18). Furthermore, if the electoral system allows people to vote for party lists and constituency candidates, out-of-country voters (and absentee voters inside the country who cast their vote outside their constituency) may be restricted to voting for party lists only.