'I'm a politically aware Irish emigrant and the last thing that I want is a vote'

The Taoiseach announced that the Government would bring forth a referendum on voting rights for Irish emigrants. I am an Irish emigrant. I hope the referendum fails. The greatest democratic right of all - your right, if you are an adult resident and citizen of the State, to elect the representatives of your choice - should be defended. It would be diluted by giving voting rights to the likes of me. I have lived in the United States for almost 14 years. On what basis would I presume to have a say in the State's direction - when that direction affects you every day, and not me? It's true, the referendum that Enda Kenny has proposed will pertain only to presidential elections. But look through the articles and websites of those who advocate emigrant voting rights. You will struggle to find any plausible evidence that they are willing to stop at the Aras. To be fair, why should they? If the right of emigrants to vote is both as self-evident and as vital as they claim, why would they believe it should only be exercised in relation to the largely symbolic role of the presidency? Their logic demands that their muscle should be exercised where the real business gets done, in elections for the Dail. They focus on the presidency because it is the most palatable route to establishing the right to vote. They know full well that the principle, once won, can be relentlessly expanded upon. There is no need to take my word for it. The website of VotingRights.ie helpfully includes a manifesto. The fourth of six points is the demand for a commission to explore "the right of all citizens to vote on future constitutional referendums and the creation of a diaspora five-seater constituency in the Dail". Think about this. This is no symbolic nod of the head, no flickering candle in the Aras window. This is the creation of a constituency that could very conceivably hold the balance of power after a close election. If that constituency were already in existence and the results of last year's general election were otherwise replicated, those five TDs would have enormous leverage - and they would have been elected not by voters in Cork, Sligo or Kildare but Chicago, Sydney and Kilburn. Would a government that came to power only because of their support have your allegiance? Whether it did or not, you would have to live with the consequences - for your job, for your health care, for your children's education. And the members of the Diaspora who cast the votes to make it so? People like me? It would not be like that for us. Not at all. When I left Ireland, Bertie Ahern was in the middle of his time as Taoiseach. The property boom had not yet gone bust. Brian Kerr was in charge of the national football team. I left, as most do, with no clear plan of how long I would be gone. Over time, life happens. Roots to the homeland dry up. New connective tissue grows, fixing the emigrant in the adopted country. The political battles that affect my life are, overwhelmingly, fought in the halls of the US Capitol or in the Oval Office. The taxes docked from my pay cheque, the financial repercussions I face if I get sick, the college bills my daughter will face - all those things are decided, by and large, by American politicians. For good or ill, the president who touches my life is Donald J Trump, not Michael D Higgins. It is a reality, as the votes-for-emigrants lobby likes to point out, that an American who had lived in Ireland during the same period of time could still vote in a US election today. I don't see why. His vote is affecting my life, and he does not live with the consequences. That is a mistake for Ireland to avoid, not an exemplar for it to emulate. I hope the referendum, when it does come is fought on its merits and not over calculations as to which Irish parties would gain or lose from a change. That may be hoping for too much. In Britain, the Conservatives have, since 2014, pledged to lift the 15-year cut-off point at which expats lose the right to vote; the Tories are assumed to benefit most from their support. Here, a left-of-centre American friend listened as I outlined my views on the Irish question. "I agree with you on principle," she said, "but I'm really glad Americans overseas can vote." Why, I asked? "I've gotta think they're almost all Democrats!" she laughed. In Ireland, the battle-lines often seem to be drawn around the assumption that Sinn Fein would gain from an extension of the franchise to emigrants - as it almost certainly would by a similar expansion to residents of the North, as is also proposed. For the record, the notion of President Gerry Adams does not cause me any of the apoplexy it stirs in others. I just happen to think that the head of State should be determined by voters who live in the State. These arguments will meet with some predictable responses from the emigrant-vote lobby. One is that the current Irish policy places the State outside international norms. Ad nauseum, we are told that approximately 120 nations give emigrants the right to vote, including the vast majority of our European counterparts. But that's an over-simplification. A European Parliament report in June 2015, clearly sympathetic to the votes-for-emigrants position, noted that at the time "six EU Member States deprive their nationals, under varying conditions, of the right to vote in national parliamentary elections due to residence abroad". (The six, of course, included Ireland and Britain.) In any event, the "international norms" argument is hollow. What is the point of having a sovereign republic in the first place, if its elected representatives are merely required to ape decisions made by other nations? The members of Dail Eireann might as well pack up and go home. Others points rest on some seriously convoluted logic. Back in 2011, Peter Geoghegan wrote an opinion column for The Guardian in which he celebrated how "the Irish abroad's clamour for greater involvement in political life back home now seems set to intensify". A few paragraphs later, he sought to calm people who live in Ireland and who might worry about the impact if such a clamour were acceded to. "Only a small proportion of Irish passport holders abroad would be expected to actually vote," he wrote. So the right of emigrants to vote is desperately desired - but only a small proportion will choose to exercise it? There are those who make a more modest, reasonable point. They note that there are some Irish emigrants who are affected by some Irish government policies - for example, if they retain property in the State. But rules about enfranchisement are necessarily broad. It is perfectly reasonable for the right to vote to be confined to the primary country of residence. The concept of no taxation without representation is a great rule-of-thumb. It is not observed in every single circumstance. A resident of Ireland with a holiday home in France has a direct stake, of a kind, in French politics - but not the right to vote in a French general election. And thousands of Irish 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds are subject to taxation. Rightly or wrongly, the right to vote has not yet been conferred upon them. Democracy, for all its grand ideals, comes down to maths. To expand the electorate in new ways is to dilute the power of its existing members. Sometimes it is essential to do so. This is not one of those times. When the referendum rolls around, don't do it. There is no compelling reason to give people like me a vote in an election where you live, while we go about our own lives 3,000 miles away. The choice is yours. I hope you vote "no". Niall Stanage is White House columnist with The Hill, a non-partisan political newspaper and website in Washington, DC, He writes here in a personal capacity

Opinion

'I'm a politically aware Irish emigrant and the last thing that I want is a vote'

Giving emigrants the right to vote in Irish elections would be a great mistake, writes Niall Stanage in Washington

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