22 SITAROPOULOS AND GIAKOUMOPOULOS v. GREECE JUDGMENT 69. As regards restrictions on expatriate voting rights based on the criterion of residence, the Convention institutions have accepted in the past that these might be justified by several factors: firstly, the presumption that non-resident citizens are less directly or less continually concerned with their country’s day-to-day problems and have less knowledge of them; secondly, the fact that non-resident citizens have less influence on the selection of candidates or on the formulation of their electoral programmes; thirdly, the close connection between the right to vote in parliamentary elections and the fact of being directly affected by the acts of the political bodies so elected; and, fourthly, the legitimate concern the legislature may have to limit the influence of citizens living abroad in elections on issues which, while admittedly fundamental, primarily affect persons living in the country (see Hilbe, cited above; see also X and Association Y v. Italy, no. 8987/80, Commission decision of 6 May 1981, Decisions and Reports (DR) 24, p. 192, and Polacco and Garofalo v. Italy, no. 23450/94, Commission decision of 15 September 1997, DR 90-A, p. 5). More recently, the Court has taken the view that having to satisfy a residence or length-of-residence requirement in order to have or exercise the right to vote in elections is not, in principle, an arbitrary restriction of the right to vote and is therefore not incompatible with Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 (see Doyle v. the United Kingdom (dec.), no. 30158/06, 6 February 2007). 2. Application of these principles to the present case 70. The Court observes at the outset that the applicants complained that the Greek legislature had not to date made the necessary arrangements enabling Greek expatriates to vote in parliamentary elections from their current place of residence. Accordingly, the complaint does not concern the recognition of expatriates’ right to vote as such, the principle of which is already recognised by Article 51 § 4 of the Greek Constitution in conjunction with Article 4 of Presidential Decree no. 96/2007, but rather the conditions governing the exercise of that right. Like the Chamber, the Grand Chamber is therefore of the view that its task consists in examining whether, despite the failure to enact legislation on the conditions for exercising the right to vote, the Greek electoral system, in the instant case, nevertheless permitted “the free expression of the opinion of the people” and preserved “the very essence of the ... right to vote”, as required by Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 (see Matthews v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 24833/94, § 65, ECHR 1999-I). It will conduct its examination in the light of the broader question as to whether Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 places States under an obligation to introduce a system enabling expatriate citizens to exercise their voting rights from abroad. 71. In general terms, Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 does not provide for the implementation by Contracting States of measures to allow expatriates to exercise their right to vote from their place of residence. Nevertheless, since