Opinion: Remove the Residency Requirement for Overseas Voting
May 27, 2025
As Singapore headed to the polls on May 3, nearly a quarter million of its citizens were unable to vote, shut out by an outdated rule: the residency requirement for overseas voting.
There are approximately 215,000 Singaporeans living overseas. However, only a small number of them–18,389–were registered as overseas voters in this year’s General Election. The residency requirement prevents more Singaporeans from participating. To register as an overseas voter, you must have spent at least 30 days in Singapore within the previous three years. Otherwise, you must vote in person in Singapore–or face removal from the electoral rolls.
This requirement makes little sense whether one is overseas working a demanding job, raising a family, or pursuing an education. In each case, one may not have the luxury of time and resources to spend a month back home in Singapore just to keep one’s right to vote. Ironically, these are precisely the citizens that Singapore should be looking to engage. This policy ends up punishing the very people it should be trying to include.
Supporters of the requirement typically point to two reasons. The first is that voters should have a stake in Singapore. But the truth is that overseas voters are deeply invested in their country. We know this because it takes a lot of effort to vote abroad–much more than to vote at home. Overseas voters must keep close track of revisions to the electoral rolls–something that happens sporadically–as they must re-apply to vote each time the rolls are revised, and before an election is actually called. In other words, if you are living abroad and navigating this process, you are demonstrating your commitment to Singapore. Simply wanting to vote is a signal of your investment in your country.
The second rationale raised is that other countries have similar rules. But this is no longer the case. The UK allows its citizens to vote from overseas with no residency requirement. US citizens living abroad can submit absentee ballots without restrictions. Australians remain eligible to vote while living overseas full-time for up to six years or longer. Even Malaysia, which still has a residency requirement, asks its voters to spend only 30 days in the country over a five-year period–a far more flexible standard. In comparison to these countries, and many others, Singapore is behind the curve.
At its core, voting is one of the most fundamental rights of citizenship. It should not be tied to one’s ability to be physically present in the country within a specific and narrow window of time. Many overseas Singaporeans remain deeply connected to life back home. At the Singapore Consulate in New York, we encountered many such individuals. We met a designer who works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who hoped for greater freedom of expression in the arts at home. We met a real-estate agent who still looks after his mother’s grocery and medical bills in Singapore and is keenly aware of the rising costs in the country. And we met a writer who knows, from living in the US, how easily a country dominated by a single party can give in to authoritarian impulses. These Singaporeans care about the future of their country, for themselves and for their family and friends at home.
Over the years, the Government has already taken steps in the right direction by adding more overseas polling stations and making postal voting possible. Removing the 30-day residency requirement would be the next logical move. It is a simple change that will make an outsized difference in giving all Singaporeans an equal right to vote–no matter where in the world they live.
Editorial Board, Singapore Unbound
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