> in the US, where the idea that you would retain any sense of belonging to your country of origin was considered at the very least backwards and ungrateful

@evan Interesting. It has been my impression my whole life that the US is the foremost place in the world where people maintain their heritage for generations, cluster in subcultures and call themselves e.g. Irish-American.

In Sweden in the 80s, children of immigrants were expected to assimilate, call themselves Swedish and drop all other ethnic identity.

These days, it's more common to embrace multiculturality, a concept that to me comes from the US, and call yourself e.g. "100% Kurdish, 100% Swedish".

@mayintoronto @fabio @renata

@evan I agree with @EricLawton -- "expatriate" is an imperial term. I see no confusion of terminology in his comment, quite the opposite.

In the context of the poll, "expatriate" was used about emigrants, not immigrants, but the point stands. The clearest term, if a bit long and pedantic, might have been "citizens who are not residents".

@malte Citizenship determining national voting privilege has issues, as you bring up. I think those issues should be addressed by correcting citizenship rules, rather than allowing residents to vote in national elections.

@evan

As a Swede living abroad, I also appreciate that, as I'm still subject to some Swedish regulation, my citizenship still gives me the right to vote in national elections.

I just find it a bit funny that I'm voting for representatives of the last Swedish circuit I lived in, and I wish Sweden did it like France and had a separate Swedes abroad circuit. Organizations for Swedes abroad are lobbying for this, but they have been doing it forever without much progress.

One more thing about EU rules: EU citizens, citizens of an EU country, vote for EU Parliament representatives of the country they reside, not their country of citizenship. This also makes sense to me.

There is some cheating going on where some people double-vote in their country of citizenship and their country of residence, but according to reports, it's too insignificant to matter.

@evan @malte

@malte I like that the EU requires local elections to allow EU citizen local residents to vote, and I like that Sweden goes further and allows all local residents of age to vote in local elections.

@evan