Still in the ‘Waiting Room’: Sri Lankan Immigrants’ Views on New Zealand’s Noncitizen Voting Rights

Abstract

Voting is predominantly understood through resident citizens’ viewpoints. Many resident citizens are nervous about the perceived consequences of voting by resident noncitizens. Although New Zealand is the only Western democratic host country that currently allows noncitizens to vote in national elections, citizens have concerns about how noncitizens use this right. This study investigates noncitizen voting from noncitizens’ viewpoints, by exploring the journeys and experiences of Sri Lankan immigrants in New Zealand. Based on 26 interviews with Sri Lankans in Auckland and Wellington, the study found two dimensions—temporal and transnational—that shape immigrants’ views in a different way from those of resident citizen voters. Building on Bridget Anderson’s methodological de-nationalism, the study suggests that we need to recognise the differences between resident citizens and resident noncitizens in order not to homogenise groups and wrongly assume that they share motives and behavioural and decision-making patterns.