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To be able to vote in Dutch national elections, as a Dutch citizen living abroad I need to register with the municipality of the Hague. Does this make me technically a resident of the Hague?

Sebastiaan van den Broek
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Andra
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    I don't think you're a resident. You only belong to the Hague's voting district. At least that's how it works in Czechia. – yo' Mar 14 '14 at 10:43

1 Answers1

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No, you are not a resident of The Hague if you live abroad.

Note that you are only able to vote in national and EU¹ elections. You are not able to vote in next weeks municipal elections.

All adult residents of The Hague are able to vote in The Hague's municipal elections. As you are not able to vote in the municipal elections, this logically means you are not a resident.

¹If you live in another EU country, you can choose in which country to participate in the elections.

gerrit
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    You can only vote in the EU elections if you are living in a EU country. For example, if you're living in the U.S. you can't vote for the EU elections, even if you are a citizen of a EU country. – Philippe Leybaert Mar 14 '14 at 15:59
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    @PhilippeLeybaert Are you sure? The municipality of The Hague sent me an e-mail to invite me to register my current address for the purposes of taking part in the EU elections while living abroad. – gerrit Mar 14 '14 at 18:36
  • I'm pretty sure, yes. It's like that for Belgium anyway, but I assume this is regulated by EU law, not national law. Once they receive your address and see that you're not living in the EU, you'll probably be informed that you're not allowed to vote. – Philippe Leybaert Mar 14 '14 at 19:03
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    @PhilippeLeybaert But last time I chose to vote by machtiging (giving someone else permission to vote on my behalf), and I don't think I told them my then-address at all. There is no mention of such a rule at Stemmen vanuit het buitenland, as far as I can see. Maybe Netherlands and Belgium have different rules. – gerrit Mar 14 '14 at 19:07
  • You may be right about The Netherlands. Shows how unified Europe really is :-). These are the rules for Belgium: http://diplomatie.belgium.be/nl/Diensten/Diensten_in_het_buitenland/Deelname_aan_verkiezingen/ – Philippe Leybaert Mar 14 '14 at 19:18
  • @PhilippeLeybaert It seems we are discussing this at length today ;-) In fact, EU citizens can vote in EU elections if you live outside the EU, as far as EU law is concerned, and many countries do allow it in practice. It's only Belgium, not the EU, that prevents you from voting from abroad. – Gala Mar 14 '14 at 22:10
  • @GaëlLaurans Belgium may indeed be the only country that doesn't allow it. But because of that it's important to not generalize too much. Answers that say "*Every* EU citizen can..." should be avoided (IMHO) – Philippe Leybaert Mar 14 '14 at 23:27
  • @PhilippeLeybaert Sure, generalizing too quickly is a problem and in fact Belgium isn't the only country that does it. Still, saying “Every EU citizen can […]” would be perfectly fine when talking about something that is mandated by EU law. But nobody did this here, I just wrote “EU citizens can […]”, i.e. it's not unheard of, at least some of them can, under certain conditions. My point is that saying “EU citizens can't” implies that it's forbidden, EU-wide, by EU law. That's the more onerous claim and it is false. – Gala Mar 14 '14 at 23:58
  • @GaëlLaurans Yeah, one unified Europe... My *ss :) – Philippe Leybaert Mar 15 '14 at 00:54