Guide on Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 – Right to free elections Nouméa was refused the right to vote in elections to the Congress of New Caledonia on the ground that he could not prove at least ten years of residence in the territory. The Court took the view that cut-off points as to length of residence addressed the concern that ballots should reflect the will of the population “concerned” and that their results should not be affected by mass voting by recent arrivals in the territory who did not have strong ties with it. Furthermore, the restriction on the right to vote was the direct and necessary consequence of establishing New Caledonian citizenship. The applicant was not affected by the acts of political institutions in New Caledonia to the same extent as resident citizens. Consequently, the residence condition was justified and pursued a legitimate aim. The history and status of New Caledonia – a transitional phase prior to the acquisition of full sovereignty and part of a process of self-determination – could be regarded as constituting “local requirements” warranting a restriction as important as the ten-year residence requirement, a condition which had also been instrumental in alleviating the bloody conflict. 39. The case of Sevinger and Eman v. the Netherlands (dec.), 2007, concerned the inability of the residents of the island of Aruba, which enjoyed a certain autonomy, to vote in elections to the Dutch Parliament. They were able, however, to vote in elections to the Parliament of Aruba, which was entitled to send special delegates to the Dutch Parliament. The Court took the view that Dutch nationals residing in Aruba were thus able to influence decisions taken by the Lower House of the Dutch Parliament and that they were not affected by the acts of that Parliament to the same extent as Dutch nationals residing in the Netherlands. It also rejected the complaint under Article 14 taken together with Article 3 of Protocol No. 1. It found that it was only those Dutch nationals residing in Aruba who were entitled to vote for members of the Parliament of Aruba and that therefore their situation was not relevantly similar to that of other Dutch nationals. 40. As regards the geographical and territorial organisation of the ballot within the relevant State, the Court acknowledged that the obligation to seek the deletion of one’s name from one electoral roll and its addition to another pursued legitimate aims: to ensure the compilation of electoral rolls in satisfactory conditions of time and supervision, to enable the proper organisation of ballot-related operations and to avoid fraud. It took the view that the obligation to comply with those formalities within the statutory deadline fell within the exercise of the State’s broad margin of appreciation in such matters (Benkaddour v. France, 2003). 3. Organisation of elections abroad for non-resident nationals 41. Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 does not oblige States to introduce a system that ensures the exercise of the right to vote for their non-resident citizens. In Sitaropoulos and Giakoumopoulos v. Greece [GC], 2012, the applicants complained that, in the absence of regulation on that point, they could not exercise their voting right in the country where they lived as expatriates (France) even though the constitution of their country of origin (Greece) provided for that possibility. The Court found that there had been no violation of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 as the disruption to the applicants’ financial, family and professional lives that would have been caused had they had to travel to Greece would not have been disproportionate to the point of impairing the very essence of their voting rights. 42. However, where national law does provide for such a system, specific obligations may arise as a result, in particular the obligation to hold fresh elections in the foreign country if necessary. In Riza and Others v. Bulgaria, 2015, the Court stated that it did not overlook the fact that the organisation of fresh elections in another sovereign country, even in only a limited number of polling stations, might face major diplomatic or organisational obstacles and entail additional costs. It found, however, that the holding of fresh elections, in a polling station where there had been serious anomalies in the voting process on the part of the electoral board on the day of the election, would have reconciled the legitimate aim behind the annulment of the election results, namely the preservation of the legality of the electoral process, with the rights of the voters and the candidates standing for election to Parliament. European Court of Human Rights 12/35 Last update: 30.04.2021