An analysis of the debate about mail-in balloting from abroad is more difficult than it firstappears. On the surface it’s a simple vote grab. Statistics show that Czechs living abroad
overwhelmingly cast their ballots in the last presidential and parliamentary elections for thecurrent president and current coalition parties, so expanding the number of people who canvote from abroad would theoretically increase the overall number of absentee votes without changing the breakdown very much, thereby giving the incumbents an edge. It’s easy to seewhy ANO and SPD oppose this. Yet what the cabinet doesn’t tell people is that Czechs liv-ing abroad would still have to register to vote (only once), which requires evidence of resi-dence. This would presumably limit the number of mail-in balloters significantly. Every votecounts, so the vote-grab incentive remains, but this makes the current debate look more likejust another way for the two sides to rouse their voters and to divide society even more.

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