ELECTORAL PROCESS

Voting and registration rights for citizens are legally protected and these rights are consistently enforced by the courts, at the highest levels. One exception is the right to vote for prisoners. Since 2006 there has been a ban on any prisoner voting who is under a full-time sentence for an Australian offense. In 2007 the legislation banning prisoners with any full-time prison sentence from voting was struck down by a majority in the High Court, in a test case. The High Court opted instead to re-impose a previous law which banned any prisoner with a sentence of three or more years from voting.

This decision by the High Court has prompted further debate about changing the law on the enfranchisement of prisoners, but to date the ban on any prisoner with a sentence of three years or more remains in force.

A second issue to do with voting and registration concerns the close of rolls. In 2004 legislation was introduced which closed the rolls the day the election was announced. It was argued that this measure disenfranchised many eligible voters who would otherwise have used the seven day period of grace after the announcement of the election to enroll. In 2010, the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010 was passed, which re-introduced a seven day period after the issue of the election writs during which voters can update their enrollment.

Canada receives the highest marks with respect to the extent to which Canadians have the opportunity to exercise their rights of participation in national elections. All Canadian citizens 18 years and over have the right to vote, including the mentally deficient and persons living abroad. The only exceptions, according to the Canada Elections Act, are electoral officers and persons who have been imprisoned in a correctional institution for more than two years. The Canada Elections Act provisions covering this latter group were made unenforceable in 2002, when the Supreme Court ruled that prison inmates had the right to vote under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Procedures for registering to vote and for voting itself are not onerous. Adequate opportunity for casting an advance ballot is provided. Persons can vote by mail if they cannot come to a polling station due to physical incapacity or residency outside the country.

According to section 31 of the Danish constitution, “The members of the Folketing shall be elected by general and direct ballot.” More specific rules are laid down in the election act. The election act stipulates that “franchise for the Folketing is held by every person of Danish nationality, who is above 18 years of age, and permanently resident in the realm, unless such person has been declared legally incompetent.” The rule determining eligibility at 18 years old was introduced in 1978.
The uncertainty created by the election act is related to the question of what it means to be “permanently resident in the realm.” The interpretation used to be rather narrow but has been expanded over time. The act explicitly says that “persons who are employed by the Danish state and ordered to enter service outside the realm, and spouses cohabiting with such persons, shall be considered to be permanently resident in the realm.” The act also gives the following list of persons, who have taken up temporary residence in foreign countries, the right to vote:

• persons working abroad as employees of a Danish public agency or any local private undertaking or association;
• persons living in a foreign country as employees of an international organization of which Denmark is a member;
• persons sent to serve in a foreign country by a Danish relief organization;
• persons living abroad for the purpose of education;
• persons living abroad for health reasons;
• persons living abroad and who, with respect to affiliation with the realm, must be quite co-equal with the persons specified in the first five listed items.

Some of these stipulations are of course open to interpretation. The list does not mention Danes working abroad for private companies. Nor is it specified how long a temporary residence can be. On this Denmark remains more restrictive than many other countries.

Electoral provisions stipulate universal adult suffrage with secret elections; the voting age is 18. Voting is not compulsory. Finnish citizens living abroad are entitled to vote, but foreigners living in Finland cannot vote, although permanent residents may vote in municipal elections. The population registration center maintains a register on persons eligible to vote and sends a notification to those included in the register; thus citizens do not need to register separately to be able to vote. A system of advance voting has been adopted since the 1978 parliamentary elections, and the proportion of ballots cast in advance has risen significantly. In the parliamentary elections of 2007, advanced polling stations were maintained at almost 400 locations all over the country. In the municipal elections of 2008, electronic voting was tested but will not be utilized in further elections. Instead, the government has decided to keep an option for Internet voting in the future.

The period under review here saw a number of important elections. Most important were the general elections held on September 27, 2009, and the reelection of Federal President Horst Köhler (CDU) by the Federal Assembly on May 23 the same year. The Federal Assembly only convenes to elect the federal president and is composed of the members of the Bundestag and the same number of additional delegates nominated by the parliaments of the federal states. The federal president is thus not elected directly by the people. This absence of a direct legitimacy derived from the sovereign is unproblematic in our view. Germany’s president has mainly representative functions, and his or her opportunity to intervene in the legislative process is rare and limited to reviewing the procedural constitutionality of laws. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning that there has been some discussion in the media dealing with the feasibility and desirability of electing the federal president directly. To sum up the debate, proponents of direct election have typically also argued for enhancing the federal president’s powers (cf. Sueddeutsche Zeitung: 25.5.2009).
Based on the requirement of German citizenship, people aged 18 or over are eligible to vote and to run for election to the Bundestag, provided that they have been resident in Germany for at least three months. The right to vote can be denied to criminals by judicial order, to persons without legal capacity or to convicts currently residing in a psychiatric hospital. Every citizen not falling under the stated exceptions and who is registered in the municipal civil registry is automatically included in the voter register. Because registration with local authorities in Germany is mandatory, this system operates without severe difficulties. In the run-up to the election, every registered citizen eligible to vote receives a notification with all required information necessary to exert his or her right to vote, as well as an application form for postal voting. Citizens not included in the civil registry, such as homeless people, are eligible to vote but have to apply to the authorities in order to be registered. No problems have been reported in recent years. There is no real doubt that the legal situation also describes administrative reality.
The grand coalition cabinet under Chancellor Angela Merkel introduced several amendments to the Federal Electoral Act – the last one in May 2009 – including the broadening of the right of Germans living abroad to vote. Beginning with the last election, German citizens abroad who have lived in Germany for at least three months have been able to apply to register for the vote with the authorities of their last domestic residence. If this is done at least 21 days before the election, they then can cast their votes by mail. Furthermore, the need to justify (i.e., give a valid reason for) the desire to cast votes by mail was abolished. These reforms can be seen as qualitative enhancements to an already high standard. Worth mentioning too are the efforts of authorities to facilitate voting for people with disabilities. In general, one can conclude that all adult citizens can participate in national elections if they so wish. Exceptions to this rule are scarce, and those that do occur are well considered and justified. Thus, no observable structural discrimination occurred in the period under review.

The voting procedure is completely unrestricted, with no special registration required. Any citizen registered as a voter in his or her district simply has to show up on election day and show a valid identity card. Every person 18 years of age or older has the right to vote.

Contrary to other civil rights, the right to vote in national, provincial or water board elections is tied to citizens in possession of Dutch nationality of eighteen years and older (as of election day). For local elections, voting rights are extended to all those registered as legal residents for at least five years. Convicts have the right to vote by authorization only; but some of them, as part of their conviction, may be denied voting rights for a period from two to five years over and above their prison terms. Since the elections in 2010, each voter is obliged to show a legally approved ID in addition to a voting card. In practice, this means that those with expired passports or drivers’ licenses are denied access to voting booths, a policy that affects in particular senior citizens who no longer travel or drive. Citizens of the Kingdom of the Netherlands resident in the Dutch Antilles or Aruba may not vote in elections in the Netherlands because they have their own representative bodies.

All Norwegian citizens who are 18 years old or older have the right to vote in parliamentary elections. In local elections, permanent residents who have resided in Norway for at least five years have the right to vote. There is no requirement of prior registration. Each eligible citizen receives a voting card sent by mail. It is possible to vote before the election at specific locations, including Norwegian embassies abroad. There has been no allegation from any political party that the electoral process is not inclusive. Election turnout is high and discrimination is rarely reported. Young voters “learn” voting behavior in schools, and arrange a school vote prior to reaching the age of voting eligibility.

According to Article 23 of the Spanish constitution, all adult citizens of 18 years and older have the right to participate in public affairs, directly or through representatives freely elected in periodic elections by universal suffrage. The extent to which this right to vote can be exercised is absolute, and apart from minor errors, no discrimination or any other significant exclusion has existed in recent elections. Only those suffering specific mental disabilities or who have been judged guilty in certain criminal cases (always by a court) may lose their political rights. All citizens are automatically included in the electoral register (Censo Electoral), which is as a rule updated correctly. There is ongoing debate over the possibility of extending suffrage rights to all legal immigrants. This development does not seem feasible in the near future, although EU citizens can already vote in local and European Parliament elections, and even foreign citizens are entitled to cast ballots in local elections if their home countries reciprocally allow Spaniards to vote in local elections. Finally, during 2010, the major Spanish parties started to discuss curtailing the local-election voting rights of Spanish migrants living abroad.

The Swedish electoral system meets the highest requirements in terms of eligibility, transparency and the right to participate. For a long time, national turnout has been comparatively high.

Once again, formal procedures and rules fully correspond to a model democracy. However, there are at least two problems. The first relates to the extremely large share of foreigners who are confronted with the rather strict rules governing naturalization.
Second, given the decentralized and federal structure of Switzerland as a multicultural country, there are minority and electoral rules which give some citizens more electoral influence than others. This applies first and foremost to representation in the Council of States (which is modeled after the U.S. Senate). Each canton is entitled to two representatives. Since the Council of States (Ständerat) has the same power as the House of Representatives (Nationalrat), and the size of cantons varies by a factor of 36 – the canton of Zurich has 36 times more inhabitants than the canton of Uri – a citizen of Uri has considerably more political power than one of Zurich. Historically, these minority rights are traceable to the denominational conflicts of the 19th century. However, one can argue that this denominational definition of minority status no longer holds importance. This would meant that there is no further ground for this unequal distribution of political resources, beyond the legacies of the past and the smaller cantons’ institutional interest in retaining their power. Nonetheless, one has to recognize that federalism and democracy function on different principles (one person-one vote for democracy, one subnational unit-one vote for federalism). Thus, the unequal weighting of the citizens’ votes is a consequence inherent in every democratic federation.

The inclusiveness of the electoral process in Austria follows European standards. There is no legal discrimination based on gender, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. In 2008, the minimum voting age was lowered from 18 to 16 in order to make voting more inclusive.
One major critical aspect is the increasing number of non-citizens living legally in Austria (excepting EU-citizens who are allowed to participate in local and European, but not in regional and national elections) who are excluded from voting. Access to citizenship is increasingly more difficult, legally and practically. As a result, a significant share of the Austrian population (approximately 10%) is excluded from political participation. This is not so much a violation of the Austrian constitution but rather a violation of a basic tenet of democracy, namely that a democratic state must provide citizenship to those who reside legally and for an extended period on its territory.

Voting is compulsory in Belgium, and all Belgian citizens living in the country are automatically registered to vote. Non-Belgian residents and Belgians living abroad have to voluntarily register to take part in elections.
The only structural difficulties in the voting system concerns municipalities with language facilities (communes à facilities or faciliteitengemeenten) around Brussels (with a French-speaking majority in Flanders) as well as municipalities in Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde. In the Brussels region the debate is over which language voters receive voting documents; the Flemish region sends documents only in Dutch, while some municipalities also send documents in French (against the will of Flanders). Some Flemish political leaders in the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde region are calling for legal action to invalidate election results on this basis.
In 2010, some French-language voters living abroad but who are based in Flanders and who received voting documents in French through municipal authorities, have been suppressed from voting lists by the Flemish minister of interior (also a member of the NV-A, the Flemish nationalist party). This action concerns a limited number of individuals.

All adult citizens, including convicted prisoners, can participate in national elections, and voter registration is relatively straightforward. However, while special provisions for a mobile ballot box facilitate voting for the disabled and seriously ill, there is no general ability to vote by mail. Czech citizens residing abroad can vote at Czech embassies and consulates. For them, the participation in elections is complicated by a special deadline for registration and the declining number of embassies and consulates.

The right to participate in elections as candidate or as a voter is fully guaranteed not only by the law but also in practice. There is no evidence of restrictions or obstruction in applying the law. Every citizen enjoys the rights provided by the constitution, including the right to abstain from voting, as it happened for instance on the occasion of the European elections in 2009 or of the regional elections in 2010. On both occasions one citizen out of two decided not to vote.
The only, but crucial, reservation is of a sociological nature. Lower class citizens or those with immigrant backgrounds – even when they are French citizens – often do not register to vote as does the average French-born citizen. They are also badly represented in political parties whose endorsement is needed for having some chance of being elected.

There is fair and equal access for citizens in terms of electoral participation. All Greek citizens are required to participate in national elections, as voting is compulsory. However, the law requiring all citizens to vote is not enforced, which means that people can in fact abstain from voting if they choose to do so. Voter registration takes place efficiently and impartially, and is performed by prefectural authorities in a nondiscriminatory manner. There is no political interference in the administrative tasks involved in voter registration, which are carried out by low-ranking civil servants who process citizens’ registration petitions. If an individual is denied the right to vote, which hardly ever happens once he or she is registered as a voter, he or she can appeal to independent judicial authorities which are competent to rectify the situation.
There are three issues to note in this context. First, convicts can also vote, unless a criminal court decision has imposed a temporary suspension of voting rights. Second, citizens without a permanent residence in the country have the right to vote (under Article 51 Paragraph 4 of the constitution), but as of the time of writing, no law or presidential decree had specified the details by which Greek citizens could exercise their right to vote while living abroad. In practice, this means the right is not upheld.
Third, on the basis of a new law passed in March 2010 (Law 3838/2010), permanent residents, including legal migrants, have the right to vote in local government elections. This is a vast improvement over the situation of the previous years. However, the new voter registration requirements have multiple conditions to be filled, and are linked to acquisition of permanent resident status.

All citizens are automatically registered, notified at home of their voting rights and supplied with the relevant information. Citizens are entitled to appeal to independent judicial bodies if they are mistakenly excluded from registration. Citizens living abroad are also entitled to vote. There are no significant complaints about the working of the process.
In the 2008 general elections, there was some discussion about Italians abroad who had trouble getting on the electoral rolls.

New Zealand’s electoral process is very inclusive. Permanent residents are given the right to vote in national elections. On the other hand, citizens who have been out of the country for more than three years are denied participation. Beyond legal regulations, there are intensive and ongoing activities, especially by the Electoral Commission, to increase political efficacy and turnout by ethnic minorities as well as young voters.

The electoral process is largely inclusive. Unlike in other countries, prisoners are allowed to vote. Some confusion is caused by different voting procedures for presidential, parliamentary and local elections. However, the main problem is the lack of absentee voting, which creates problems for the large number of Polish citizens living outside Poland as well as for the handicapped or seriously ill. The former often have to travel long distances to a Polish embassy or consulate if they want to vote; the latter often cannot vote at all. Moreover, many polling stations are not accessible to the handicapped. Part of the problems have been addressed by new legislation in November 2009, which enables handicapped people and people over 75 to vote through a plenipotentiary and obliges the municipalities to improve the accessibility of polling stations.

All adult citizens are guaranteed the right to participate in national elections, and this right is respected in practice. The government even provides transportation to those requiring it. Citizens in hospitals and in jail are also assisted in being able to vote, and Portuguese citizens living abroad are similarly eligible. There is no observable discrimination.
As in the 2009 report, problems with substantial inflation of the electoral register remain. For the 2009 legislative elections, the register’s count stood at slightly above 1 million voters, thus inflating the abstention rate by more than seven percentage points. This is very high in comparative terms. Such inflated registers are often associated with risks of electoral fraud. However, this does not appear to be the case in Portugal.
The problem of inflated voter registration figures masking cases of non-registration, highlighted in the previous report, is being resolved. The implementation of new citizen cards, which began nationally in 2008, led to the adoption of a process of automatic registration. As these cards are more widely diffused, the proportion of nonregistered voters is likely to dwindle. However, the system continues to lack absentee voting options.

All adult citizens 19 years of age or older are eligible to vote, and voter registration is fair and effective. Citizens can appeal to the National Election Commission and the courts if they feel they have been discriminated against. Citizens who are currently serving prison time, certain violators of election laws and those who committed specified crimes while holding a public office are excluded from this right.
On February 5, 2009, following a request by the Constitutional Court, the National Assembly changed the Public Official Election Act to allow overseas citizens over 19 years of age to vote in presidential elections and in National Assembly general elections. Overseas citizens are defined as Korean citizens residing in foreign countries who are permanent residents or short-term visitors.

All Turkish nationals who are 18 years old or more can exercise the right to vote (according to Article 67 of the constitution). The Supreme Election Board is the sole authority in the administration of the elections in Turkey (Article 10, Law No. 298). The general directorate of electoral registry is tasked with preparing, maintaining and renewing the electoral registry nationwide. Despite the recent revision of the electoral registry based on an address recording system, disputes over duplicate or missing registrations persist. Parliamentary and local elections are conducted by election boards under the supervision of the Supreme Election Board. Investigations into irregularities, complaints and objections concerning the elections and verification of the election returns are performed by the election boards and by the Supreme Election Board as the final authority (Article 79 of the 1982 constitution).
The quality of the electoral registry is poor in Turkey, due to vast rural outmigration and rapid ongoing urbanization. The ratio of rural to urban inhabitants has radically shifted in the last 75 years, from 24.2% to 75.8% in 1927, to 43.9% to 56.1% in 1980, and to 75.5% to 24.5% in 2009. Although electronic registration of the population started as early as 1979, there is still no reliable data regarding either the population as a whole or the electorate as a specific group.
After 50 years of Turkish labor migration to Europe, the parliament in 2008 adopted a bill (Law No. 5749, amending Law No. 298 on Basic Principles of Elections and Electoral Registry) that made absentee voting feasible for the first time. From that date onward, Turkish citizens living abroad have been able to cast their vote at voting stations in Turkish embassies and consulates. Due to residence abroad, the absentee vote is restricted to the vote for political parties, and does not allow votes for independent candidates who – so the reasoning goes – are always locally anchored. In the last elections, this restriction particularly affected voters of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Left Party (DSP), whose candidates – due to the 10% hurdle – ran on independent tickets. This law was partially annulled by the Constitutional Court. This is an issue not only for minor parties but also for big parties too. However, the absentee ballot system has been postponed for years simply because of election security reasons.

To be entitled to vote, voters must be on the electoral register. This register is kept by local authorities, and is updated annually on the basis of a house-to-house canvassing process in which everybody is legally obliged to participate. The process is open to abuse in that the head of household simply sends a list of residents to the local canvass officer, and it is unusual for any subsequent checks to occur. Applications for postal votes (with cutoff points a few weeks ahead of elections) function in a similar way, and there have been occasional concerns and reports in the press about abuse of the system, with ballot papers falling into the wrong hands. In other words, the system relies on a high degree of trust rather than strict monitoring. It was reported in the press in the run-up to the May 2010 general election that the police were investigating 50 cases of electoral rolls being rigged (Daily Mail, May 4, 2010).

Restrictions to the right to vote in general elections apply in only three cases, namely those of criminal imprisonment, mental disability and membership in the House of Lords.

Voter registration is administered by the states, subject to regulation by the federal government. Racial and other discriminatory practices – rampant in the Southern states a half century ago – have been essentially eliminated through federal regulation and enforcement. However, in most states, registration requires a separate act; it does not come automatically with residency. Some observers link requiring active registration to lower voter turnout rates, in particular among minorities and lower income voters. The states and the federal government have made efforts to facilitate registration. Many states now link driver’s license records with voter registration and social security card information. Nine states permit same-day registration, in which the voter registers at the polling place just before voting. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 seeks to establish minimum election standards ( including procedures for voter identification), mandates the replacement of punch-card voting equipment (which sometimes fails to record individual votes accurately), sets up an Election Assistance Commission, and makes available to the states grants for modernizing their voting systems. The act sets standards for voter identification (which can be as minimal as presentation of a utility bill with a valid address). The Supreme Court in 2008 upheld an Indiana law that required an official photo ID for registration. In the 2008 elections, which saw a great expansion of voter registration, particularly among first-time voters, youth and minorities, only occasional problems with voter registration were reported.

In principle, all adult citizens can take part in national elections. However, exceptions hold not only for persons under guardianship, but for convicted prisoners as well. In the April 2010 elections, about 60,000 citizens were not allowed to vote. While there is no postal vote, special provisions for allowing disabled and ill citizens to vote by means of a movable ballot box exist. In a handful of voting districts, voting in the April 2010 elections was complicated by extremely long waiting lines, which resulted in some citizens not exercising their voting rights. The election board (National Electoral Committee, OVB) was aware of the problem in advance, but did not resolve the problem in time.

There is no overall register of the population in Ireland, so the voters’ register has to be compiled by local authorities, who are not always diligent in keeping their registers up to date.
While problems with the Electoral Register persist in certain areas, there is no evidence of systematic discrimination or disenfranchisement of any groups in society. Nonetheless, the repeatedly exposed inconsistencies in the Electoral Register display a lack of investment in the electoral process and even a lack of concern for its integrity. In June 2008, the government set up a working group to advise on the design of an Electoral Commission, which would have responsibility for drawing electoral district boundaries and maintaining the electoral register. As many as 16 or 17 separate pieces of legislation will need to be reviewed or repealed in order to give it the authority it requires.
Voting is not compulsory. However, choice of the date of election has been made to maximize participation, and polling stations remain open from 07:00 a.m. until 22:00 p.m.

The Japanese Constitution grants universal adult suffrage to all Japanese citizens. No general problems with discrimination or the exercise of this right can be observed. Since 2006, Japanese citizens living abroad have also been granted the ability to participate in elections.

One outstanding issue is the relative size of electoral districts. Those in the countryside still contain far fewer people than in congested urban areas. The ratio of the vote weight in the least populated area as compared to the most populated district stands at 2.3. Several high courts, including the Tokyo High Court in February 2010, ruled that the 2009 lower house election was unconstitutional on these grounds, and the Supreme Court is expected to take up this issue late in 2010. The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has announced that it wants to address this issue as well, but it needs a broadly based consensus if it is to change the electoral districts.

To take part in elections one must be a citizen of Luxembourg who is 18 years old or older on the day of the elections, who claims full civil and political rights and who lives in the country. Luxembourgers living abroad temporarily can vote by mail. Hence, there is no observable discrimination.
However, 44% of the resident population is excluded from national elections because they are not citizens of Luxembourg. Of those, 70% are citizens of the European Union and can therefore participate in European elections. All foreigners, EU citizens as well as non-EU citizens, have the right to participate in local elections provided they fulfill certain residency requirements and are registered on the electoral list.
The political participation of foreigners at the local level has improved. Voting list enrollment has recently been facilitated and in April 2010, a proposal was introduced to allow foreigners to stand as candidates for the positions of mayor and councilor. Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker has, however, exercised his veto against allowing foreigners to vote in parliamentary elections.

Most Mexicans enjoy the effective right to vote. Turnout rates among registered voters are broadly comparable to those in other democracies, falling around 59% in the 2006 presidential elections and around 40% to 45% in midterm congressional elections. Some provisions governing state and local elections are determined locally, and some of these may involve the possibility of bias. Even so, there is no real basis for saying that electoral exclusion is a problem. The same electoral register is used for federal and state/local elections. Voter registration requires the production of an identity card. There are good reasons for this stipulation, since multiple voting was common in the past in some parts of Mexico; however, its effect may be to dissuade some less-educated Mexicans from registering to vote. This is a problem common to most countries with relatively high rates of social marginalization, which in turn tends to produce a comparatively high share of the population lacking documentation. In 2006, Mexicans who lived in the United States or elsewhere abroad were allowed to vote in federal elections in Mexico for the first time. However, the associated regulations were complex, and deterred a significant number of expatriate Mexicans from voting.

The electoral process is largely inclusive. In principle, all adult citizens can participate in elections. There is a special electoral register for traveling communities, most notably Roma, and other Slovak citizens without permanent residence in the country. Voters that will not be in their place of residence on election day can ask for a special voter’s pass that allows voting elsewhere. Slovak citizens residing or staying abroad can vote by mail. However, electoral participation is still marred by the blanket disenfranchisement of convicted prisoners, which is not in line with the European Convention on Human Rights. The regional elections in November 2009 were overshadowed by allegations of vote-buying in the Košice region. Though the allegations were not proven, the controversy led four members of the Central Electoral Commission to decline from signing the final report on the elections. Critical observers speak of the most serious electoral fraud in Slovakia since the end of communism (Bútora et al. 2010, 20-21).

The voter registration process is fairly simple, with some bureaucratic formalities. Overall voter participation is relatively high. However, a significant fraction of young people fail to register, notwithstanding efforts by successive governments and the political parties to raise youth participation rates. In January 2009, a constitutional reform was passed that introduces automatic voter registration, and makes voter participation voluntary. This will first become effective for the 2013 presidential election. Chileans living abroad do not have the right to vote. According to law, persons that have been charged with a felony and sentenced to prison for more than three years and one day, as well as persons categorized as terrorists, lose their suffrage rights. Persons who have not yet been charged, but remain in detention, are also barred from voting, as are persons serving in the military below a certain rank.