More Greeks Abroad Register for Postal Voting in the Euro Elections

More than 33 thousand Greeks living abroad have registered for postal voting for the European Parliament elections in June, double the votes counted at the polling stations in the June parliamentary elections of 2023.

The deadline for postal voting applications is April 29.

According to data from the Ministry of Interior, the number of registered voters outside Greece stands at 33,350, almost double the 17,365 votes counted at the polling stations in the overseas region last June.

Overall more than 114,200 voters have registered on the platform to vote by post in the European elections on June 9th.

The number of voters within Greece who have declared their intention to vote by post currently stands at 80,908, indicating significant interest within the country in postal voting.

Greece launched the online platform for registration in the electoral roll for postal voting in February.

The initiative aims to streamline the process for Greek citizens to exercise their voting rights in the European Parliament elections and national referendums.

The mail-in system applies to all citizens registered in the electoral rolls who wish to participate in the elections, regardless of their location within or outside the country’s borders.

Greek residents living abroad can only participate in the upcoming European elections through postal voting.

The online platform can be accessed here.

The bill on postal voting was approved for the European elections during a parliamentary vote in late January.

“For the first time in the history of the Greek state, postal voting is introduced,” said Interior Minister Niki Kerameus. “The removal of all practical barriers for our fellow citizens in Greece and abroad to exercise their voting rights. Our democracy is expanding.”

Postal voting in Greece follows voting from country of residence

Announcing postal voting last November, Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis said, “It is a brave reform, it widens the electorate that participates in elections and is the most powerful answer to abstention and inaction.”

He pointed out that many groups of citizens, including the elderly, students, and seasonal workers far from their place of residence, can participate in the election procedure through the postal vote. Furthermore, he added that the activation of this possibility in the elections for the European Parliament this spring would be followed in the national elections.

The PM said that postal voting is a “brave institutional reform’ that follows his government’s initiative in 2021 to allow the diaspora to vote without having to fly back home.”

Until then, Greece was the only country in Europe—and perhaps the entire Western world— where full citizens living abroad were denied the right to vote in Greek elections from the country of their residence either by casting a ballot at the Greek embassy or through postal voting.