Citizens have already started voting in the European elections, not only from abroad

With less than two days until the opening of the ballot boxes in the 27 EU member states (four in Italy, to be precise) for the 2024 European elections, some citizens of the Union have already started casting their votes—electronically, in an envelope, or on a ballot paper—which will not be revealed until the polls close on June 9 between 8 pm and 11 pm. These are EU citizens living abroad and those from two member countries that have introduced early voting to encourage voter turnout. 

In Finland, early voting closes today (June 4) for voters within national borders (open since May 29), despite the fact that the official voting date for the European elections is June 9. This arrangement may be a good incentive to vote in a country with sparsely populated interior regions and where voters may be forced to travel long distances to reach the nearest polling station (such as Lapland). On the other hand, Finnish voters abroad could already vote by mail or at the embassy between May 29 and June 1.

A similar situation is expected in Estonia, where the official voting date is June 9, but it offers its citizens the possibility to vote electronically from June 3 to 8, either in person or online. Despite some technical problems with the online voting platform due to the recognition of the website itself as malware by some browsers, Estonia is the only EU country that has introduced the e-vote among the possibilities for democratic expression in the European elections. Estonian citizens abroad can do the same during the same period as an alternative to postal or embassy voting (already held between May 26 and 27).

In many other member countries, too, several citizens have already had—or are having right now—the opportunity to cast their votes before the polls open between June 6 and June 9. In this case, however, only the voters residing abroad are allowed to express their preference by mail or at the embassy (exceptions are only Ireland, Malta, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, which do not provide any option for residents abroad). Fourteen member countries have included postal voting and are already now concluding the collection of votes from abroad in these hours: Austria, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain (which also provides postal voting within the country until June 7), Sweden, and Hungary, as well as Estonia and Finland.

At the 2024 European elections, citizens (abroad) of two-thirds of the member states will also have the option of going to their consulate or embassy of choice in the country where they live—but for Italy and Bulgaria only if they are not non-EU—with voting operations that can be brought forward from the domestic deadlines. It is the case of Italy, whose voters living abroad will be able to go to the polls between June 7 and 8, but also of Belgium (on June 5), of Bulgaria (which has already closed operations between May 29 and June 1), of Denmark (from March 9 to May 23), of France (with the addition of June 8) of Portugal (May 28-30), and of Sweden (from May 16). No exceptions for those of Cyprus, Croatia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Hungary (all on June 9, as in their respective home countries) and Latvia (June 8).