From fringe to mainstream. Migrant Vote made it to the public debate.

The topic of universal voting rights made an impact on the public debate in Ireland this year. Here’s a summary of the multiple voices in this public discussion to date.

I started The Migrant Vote to share my knowledge on facilitating migrant electoral participation and to develop a theoretical framework for universal voting rights for migrants. It is a rather niche topic, so I was not expecting going viral with my writing. Nevertheless, sometimes it felt like the words and ideas I wrote went into a vacuum. The purpose of the Migrant Vote is to contribute to an actual change. Change cannot happen if ideas remain on the fringe of public consciousness and discussion.

This election season I decided to test if there will be an appetite for this subject within the Irish mainstream media. I pitched an idea for an op. ed. with an editor of the Irish Independent, Ireland’s best-selling newspaper. My pitch was accepted.

Following the Irish Independent publication, the topic was picked up by producers of the Hard Shoulder radio program. I was invited for an interview to this daily afternoon show on the Newstalk radio which has an audience of 148k people.

My ideas of inclusive democracy with full migrant participation are neither new nor unique. In Ireland, the question about universal voting rights for migrants has been covered by Shamim Malekmian during the 2021 Dublin by-elections. The article reported that some political parties were supportive of introducing universal voting rights for migrants. Would they be still supportive? Perhaps, it is a question worth presenting to political parties again.

This year Imasha Costa published her call for universal voting rights in the Irish Examiner. Imesha wrote about the irony of being a journalist writing about politics yet having no say on this topic herself. I couldn’t agree more with Imesha. It is ironic that everyone has the right to voice their opinion about immigration during this election, except for migrants.

Together with Shamim and Imasha, we saw the seeds. Now, we need to nourish the ground to sprout the idea further.

The topic of universal voting rights made an impact on the public debate about Irish democracy this year. A substantial part of Irish society was exposed to the idea that migrants deserve voting rights, too. There were a lot of voices of support, but as expected, this proposal was met with resistance too. Universal voting rights for migrants may seem a controversial topic to many people. I want to remind those people that over a hundred years ago the proposal to grant voting rights to female citizens was also seen as controversial. Let’s keep an open mind.

I would be more than happy to continue the conversation about the merits of this proposal with anyone who wants to talk. Sadly, most of the expressions of resistance came in the form of insults, name-calling, profanities, and sexualised abusive content. While waiting for an opportunity to engage with contra-arguments of value and merits I’ll continue writing about votes for migrants.

My op. ed. is behind a paywall so here are pics of the text. Happy reading and thank you for reading my stuff for the last 18 months.