Is it possible to lose your right to vote in your country?
April 1, 2025
And if so, how do you lose your right to vote in your country?
25 comments
For criminal offenses: if sentenced to more than five years of prison, or for certain political crimes (terrorism, election fraud, Nazism). You re-aquire you voting rights after serving your sentence.
No other reasons as far as I know.
Only if you are incapable of performing legal acts – usually as a result of severe mental disability or dementia. For example, you cannot also sign contracts or take out loans and have assigned guardian who is responsible to act for your benefit.
No, there is no way of losing the right to active suffrage. What you can lose is the right to passive suffrage (id est to run for office), which happens as a consequence of being found guilty of a misdemeanor or felony, and that ineligibility is only for the duration of the penalty imposed.
A friend of mine was sentenced to four months jail for vandalism some years ago (suspended execution of the penalty), and the sentence said that he lost the right to passive suffrage for the duration of the sentence. He asked what that meant, I explained it to him, and he told me “meh, I didn’t intend to run for office anyways”.
If you are incarcerated, you can vote by mail.
I know that, for example, Danish citizens who live abroad do not have the right to vote.
Icelandic citizens living abroad lose that right after 10-20 years (I can’t remember), though I think they can apply to keep it.
if you’re a “naturalized” citizen, you can have your citizenship revoked in case of Murder, Terrorism or other major convictions, and thus loose your right to vote for parliament.
But you can still vote for Regional and Municipal elections
Those convictions does normally also contain an eviction sentence, so it’s not that likely that you’ll have your citizenship revoked while being allowed to stay
Germany. Yes. But only in very specific cases.
Exclusion from the right to vote occurs if there have been convictions to prison terms of at least six months or at least one year, for example for the following offenses:
– Preparation of a war of aggression and high treason against the federal government
– Treason and disclosure of state secrets
– Attack against organs and representatives of foreign states
– Interference with elections and falsification of election documents
– Bribery of members of parliament
– Acts of sabotage of defense equipment or intelligence services that endanger security (in this case, a prison sentence of at least one year is required).
It’s not automatic, i. e. a judge must explicitly dock your right to vote and the maximum amount is five years.
If you’re deemed incompetent. This is usually only for people with mental disabilities, or people that have a severe mental illnesses. Could be Down’s or Alzheimer’s, but it’s usually a case-by-case kind of thing.
– Regarding Denmark
In Hungary, convicted criminals can be legally banned from public affairs. Orban’s plan is to also suspend citizenship (!) of dual nationals if they are a threat to his power and expel them from the country (i.e. polititians, activists, NGO workers, journalists, judges etc.).
1. You’re declared legally incompetent (usually as a result of mental disability).
2. Your voting right is taken away as a punishment for a serious crime, usually political (high treason, bribery as a public official, election fraud etc.).
3. It’s taken away by the State Tribunal (a judicial body that rules on the constitutional liability of people holding the highest offices of state).
As far as I know: no, not anymore. Up until 1969 people sentenced for serious criminal offences often lost their so-called ”civic trust”, usually for a set period of time that could last even longer than the prison sentence and meant they could not vote or stand as a candidate.
Nowadays people who are deemed legally incompetent (due to e.g. very severe mental illness or developmental/intellectual disability) can still vote but they can’t stand as a candidate in elections. That’s the only restriction that I know of.
I can’t find any reference to that. Every citizen and some permanent residents have the right to vote.
Swedish citizens cannot lose the right to vote. Even citizens who have a court-assigned guardian (förvaltare) retain their right to vote, while not being able to legally enter into agreements. Of course in practice, a person with a guardian is likely not able to independently vote.
In Latvia, it’s also impossible for a citizen to lose the right to vote. The constitution says all adult citizens can vote, and the constitutional court has also ruled that it’d be unconstitutional to revoke that right for any individual.
The most common way is being declared incompetent, but that concerns mostly cases of people who have severe cognitive disabilities since childhood and have never reached a point of semi-independent adulthood. But people who are severely ill in adulthood can’t reach that easily and there are arrangements where people (some of whom are really no longer in condition where they are able to make informed decisions) can vote from their homes, retirement homes, hospitals and hospices.
The other possibility is through criminal activity, but that can only occur with crimes like high treason, there are arrangements where your average murderer can vote from prison.
İf you married a foreigner as a woman before 1949 you don’t just lose your right to vote but your citizenship (between 1945 snd 1949 only if you would end up stateless). This is in Germany.
Sweden: It used to be that people under guardinship (think Britney Spears) lost their right to vote, but since 1998 everyone in Sweden with citizenship have an absolut right to vote. Since 1974 even the king of Sweden have a right to vote! Used to be that royalty weren’t allowed to vote. But the right to vote is a fundemental freedom and can not be taken away.
In the UK you lose the right to vode when you become a member of the House of Lords, or commit certain criminal offences.
In Finland: NO.
Even if you are incompetent person (law term, person with insufficient mental capacity), you still have the right to vote. You can not lose your right to vote in Finland.
However, in the European Parlament Election, if you are not a Finnish citizen and have lost your right to vote in your home country, you are not eligible to vote in Finland either.
Germany:
Yes.
It can be part of your sentence, if you are found guilty of one of the following crimes and the prison sentence exceeds 6 months*:
1. Preparing an offensive war or high treason against the federation
2. Treason or revealing state secrets
3. Impeding or falsifying elections
4. Bribing elected representatives
5. Sabotaging defense material or espionage (*minimum 1 year sentence required to apply in this case)
Never automatically applied. It’s at the discretion of the sentencing judge. Minimum is 2 years up to a maximum of 5 years.
Everyone can vote apart from:
– children under 18
– people who aren’t citizens of the UK, Ireland, or a Commonwealth citizen with the right to live in the UK
– members of the House of Lords
– people who are currently in prison
– people who have ever been convicted of a crime that involves electoral fraud
The king and senior members of the Royal Family are allowed to vote, but they don’t.
Everyone over the age of 18 can vote in Lithuania. Immigrants with permanent residence permits can vote in local elections.
Prisoners can vote too, because the punishment in prison is suspension of your freedom of movement. All other freedoms aren’t affected.
Sweden: No. It’s a fundamental right, which can not be taken away.
You can choose not to vote, though, but that is, as far as protests go, pretty meaningless.
Netherlands: yes, but it’s very specific. You need to be receive a sentence of a year or more of imprisonment, and then if your crime was related to undermining the democracy (e.g. fraud with voting ballots) the judge has the option to also issue a voting ban. Source [https://www.kiesraad.nl/verkiezingen/tweede-kamer/stemmen/uitsluiting-kiesrecht](https://www.kiesraad.nl/verkiezingen/tweede-kamer/stemmen/uitsluiting-kiesrecht)
No. It’s against Article 30.4 of our constitution.
They may be suspended for up to 5 years for electoral crimes, though.
I won’t go over the political equality treaties with Brazil and Cape Verde, but to sum it up Portuguese nationals can also apply to vote in Brazil or Cape Verde, temporarily suspending their Portuguese voting rights and vice-versa.
~~ Yes. Or well, ish. The king and his closest family is not allowed to vote in Swedens election, which means that if you happen to be born into the royal succession, you will never get to vote.
Which doesn’t exactly answer your question, since you don’t *lose* the right to vote if you’re never given it in the first place, but it still felt relevant. So criminals etc can still vote, while his Majesty the King cannot. ~~
Edit: I was incorrect.
Edit 2: strike through won’t work but ah well
Also, while note as interesting, but a more direct answer to what you’re asking:
People who are placed under guardianship due to mental illness, dementia, etc. lose their right to vote. This does not apply to all patients with mental illness & dementia, however.
25 comments
For criminal offenses: if sentenced to more than five years of prison, or for certain political crimes (terrorism, election fraud, Nazism). You re-aquire you voting rights after serving your sentence.
No other reasons as far as I know.
Only if you are incapable of performing legal acts – usually as a result of severe mental disability or dementia. For example, you cannot also sign contracts or take out loans and have assigned guardian who is responsible to act for your benefit.
No, there is no way of losing the right to active suffrage. What you can lose is the right to passive suffrage (id est to run for office), which happens as a consequence of being found guilty of a misdemeanor or felony, and that ineligibility is only for the duration of the penalty imposed.
A friend of mine was sentenced to four months jail for vandalism some years ago (suspended execution of the penalty), and the sentence said that he lost the right to passive suffrage for the duration of the sentence. He asked what that meant, I explained it to him, and he told me “meh, I didn’t intend to run for office anyways”.
If you are incarcerated, you can vote by mail.
I know that, for example, Danish citizens who live abroad do not have the right to vote.
Icelandic citizens living abroad lose that right after 10-20 years (I can’t remember), though I think they can apply to keep it.
if you’re a “naturalized” citizen, you can have your citizenship revoked in case of Murder, Terrorism or other major convictions, and thus loose your right to vote for parliament.
But you can still vote for Regional and Municipal elections
Those convictions does normally also contain an eviction sentence, so it’s not that likely that you’ll have your citizenship revoked while being allowed to stay
Germany. Yes. But only in very specific cases.
Exclusion from the right to vote occurs if there have been convictions to prison terms of at least six months or at least one year, for example for the following offenses:
– Preparation of a war of aggression and high treason against the federal government
– Treason and disclosure of state secrets
– Attack against organs and representatives of foreign states
– Interference with elections and falsification of election documents
– Bribery of members of parliament
– Acts of sabotage of defense equipment or intelligence services that endanger security (in this case, a prison sentence of at least one year is required).
It’s not automatic, i. e. a judge must explicitly dock your right to vote and the maximum amount is five years.
If you’re deemed incompetent. This is usually only for people with mental disabilities, or people that have a severe mental illnesses. Could be Down’s or Alzheimer’s, but it’s usually a case-by-case kind of thing.
– Regarding Denmark
In Hungary, convicted criminals can be legally banned from public affairs. Orban’s plan is to also suspend citizenship (!) of dual nationals if they are a threat to his power and expel them from the country (i.e. polititians, activists, NGO workers, journalists, judges etc.).
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/03/11/hungary-threatens-dual-nationals-with-expulsion-in-latest-campaign-to-defend-sovereignty
Three ways:
1. You’re declared legally incompetent (usually as a result of mental disability).
2. Your voting right is taken away as a punishment for a serious crime, usually political (high treason, bribery as a public official, election fraud etc.).
3. It’s taken away by the State Tribunal (a judicial body that rules on the constitutional liability of people holding the highest offices of state).
As far as I know: no, not anymore. Up until 1969 people sentenced for serious criminal offences often lost their so-called ”civic trust”, usually for a set period of time that could last even longer than the prison sentence and meant they could not vote or stand as a candidate.
Nowadays people who are deemed legally incompetent (due to e.g. very severe mental illness or developmental/intellectual disability) can still vote but they can’t stand as a candidate in elections. That’s the only restriction that I know of.
I can’t find any reference to that. Every citizen and some permanent residents have the right to vote.
Swedish citizens cannot lose the right to vote. Even citizens who have a court-assigned guardian (förvaltare) retain their right to vote, while not being able to legally enter into agreements. Of course in practice, a person with a guardian is likely not able to independently vote.
In Latvia, it’s also impossible for a citizen to lose the right to vote. The constitution says all adult citizens can vote, and the constitutional court has also ruled that it’d be unconstitutional to revoke that right for any individual.
Affirmative In Belgium: https://justitie.belgium.be/nl/themas_en_dossiers/straffen_en_boetes/soorten_straffen/bijkomende_straffen/ontzetting_uit_bepaalde_rechten
Yes, but the bar is really, really high for that.
The most common way is being declared incompetent, but that concerns mostly cases of people who have severe cognitive disabilities since childhood and have never reached a point of semi-independent adulthood. But people who are severely ill in adulthood can’t reach that easily and there are arrangements where people (some of whom are really no longer in condition where they are able to make informed decisions) can vote from their homes, retirement homes, hospitals and hospices.
The other possibility is through criminal activity, but that can only occur with crimes like high treason, there are arrangements where your average murderer can vote from prison.
İf you married a foreigner as a woman before 1949 you don’t just lose your right to vote but your citizenship (between 1945 snd 1949 only if you would end up stateless). This is in Germany.
Sweden: It used to be that people under guardinship (think Britney Spears) lost their right to vote, but since 1998 everyone in Sweden with citizenship have an absolut right to vote. Since 1974 even the king of Sweden have a right to vote! Used to be that royalty weren’t allowed to vote. But the right to vote is a fundemental freedom and can not be taken away.
In the UK you lose the right to vode when you become a member of the House of Lords, or commit certain criminal offences.
In Finland: NO.
Even if you are incompetent person (law term, person with insufficient mental capacity), you still have the right to vote. You can not lose your right to vote in Finland.
However, in the European Parlament Election, if you are not a Finnish citizen and have lost your right to vote in your home country, you are not eligible to vote in Finland either.
Germany:
Yes.
It can be part of your sentence, if you are found guilty of one of the following crimes and the prison sentence exceeds 6 months*:
1. Preparing an offensive war or high treason against the federation
2. Treason or revealing state secrets
3. Impeding or falsifying elections
4. Bribing elected representatives
5. Sabotaging defense material or espionage (*minimum 1 year sentence required to apply in this case)
Never automatically applied. It’s at the discretion of the sentencing judge. Minimum is 2 years up to a maximum of 5 years.
Everyone can vote apart from:
– children under 18
– people who aren’t citizens of the UK, Ireland, or a Commonwealth citizen with the right to live in the UK
– members of the House of Lords
– people who are currently in prison
– people who have ever been convicted of a crime that involves electoral fraud
The king and senior members of the Royal Family are allowed to vote, but they don’t.
Everyone over the age of 18 can vote in Lithuania. Immigrants with permanent residence permits can vote in local elections.
Prisoners can vote too, because the punishment in prison is suspension of your freedom of movement. All other freedoms aren’t affected.
Sweden: No. It’s a fundamental right, which can not be taken away.
You can choose not to vote, though, but that is, as far as protests go, pretty meaningless.
Netherlands: yes, but it’s very specific. You need to be receive a sentence of a year or more of imprisonment, and then if your crime was related to undermining the democracy (e.g. fraud with voting ballots) the judge has the option to also issue a voting ban. Source [https://www.kiesraad.nl/verkiezingen/tweede-kamer/stemmen/uitsluiting-kiesrecht](https://www.kiesraad.nl/verkiezingen/tweede-kamer/stemmen/uitsluiting-kiesrecht)
No. It’s against Article 30.4 of our constitution.
They may be suspended for up to 5 years for electoral crimes, though.
I won’t go over the political equality treaties with Brazil and Cape Verde, but to sum it up Portuguese nationals can also apply to vote in Brazil or Cape Verde, temporarily suspending their Portuguese voting rights and vice-versa.
~~ Yes. Or well, ish. The king and his closest family is not allowed to vote in Swedens election, which means that if you happen to be born into the royal succession, you will never get to vote.
Which doesn’t exactly answer your question, since you don’t *lose* the right to vote if you’re never given it in the first place, but it still felt relevant. So criminals etc can still vote, while his Majesty the King cannot. ~~
Edit: I was incorrect.
Edit 2: strike through won’t work but ah well
Also, while note as interesting, but a more direct answer to what you’re asking:
People who are placed under guardianship due to mental illness, dementia, etc. lose their right to vote. This does not apply to all patients with mental illness & dementia, however.