Mobilising the Green Expat Vote Project

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The Global Greens (GG) are developing a project to "Mobilise the Green Expat vote" as part of a GG Democracy campaign.  The project builds upon growing experience, research and interest in the contribution of expatriates to the Green Party movement in general and in our election results in particular.

Expatriates are people who live outside of their country of citizenship.  For some countries, the expatriate population is so significant that their lack of representation in their home country is a democratic concern.  Do you know what percentage of your voting citizens are living abroad?  Send your information to the GG Coordinator!

Some countries have already granted expats voting rights and new forms of representation.  Some Green Parties are already organising their expats and campaigning with them to vote Green at election time, here are some examples:

• In France over 3 million French citizens live abroad, and can elect 11 Members of Parliament and 12 senators (out of 577 and 348); 443 consular councilors and 68 delegates; and have an official Assembly of the French Abroad (AFE, 90 members) to represent them!  Here's the French Greens (Europe Écologie Les Verts - EELV) website dedicated to organising their Green expat voters! -http://horsdefrance.eelv.fr
• In Sweden more than 7% of the population are expats (660,000) - see research here, and here - and the Swedish Green Party have elected Delegates to vote at party congress on behalf of their expats abroad.
• In New Zealand, the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand (GPANZ) has a global campaign team which even fields Green global candidates!  Check out their Facebook group "Kiwi Greens Global"
• In Germany, the German Green Party, Bündnis 90 Die Grünen, has formal Party branches abroad, here's the party branch in Washington DC: http://gruene-washington.de/neuigkeiten

Green political priorities are now increasingly mainstream political concerns. Our opportunity and challenge are to organise the Global Greens movement to connect with the communities who already favour our priorities and to win their vote.  As an organisation of Green parties around the world, we can work together to more effectively communicate with and campaign to both our own citizens living abroad and the immigrants in our countries.  Below are some ideas of how we can begin to do so:

Step 1: Learn how Member Parties currently engage with expats by inviting them to respond to this Questionnaire.

Step 2: Analyse the questionnaire results and discuss with international secretaries how we can build the organisational means and protocol within our parties and the Global Greens to include overseas voters in our party election campaigns in particular and in communications in general. 

Step 3: Develop an online map to facilitate global networking among campaigners.  

Continue to build the means for Green Party members to mutually support one another, such as by crowdfunding support for party projects and sharing expertise and ideas to help each other build the practice of thinking and acting globally and locally at the same time.

Step 4: Cultivate a tradition of convening enjoyable and meaningful physical meetups among people interested in Global topics at the local level.  Meetup activities could include presentations, discussions, networking events, capacity building educational programmes, and campaign-focused activities.