More Germans living abroad registered to vote in upcoming election

More German citizens living abroad have registered to vote by post in Sunday’s national election, according to German election administrators.

Germany’s federal returning officer said on Thursday that a total of 213,255 German citizens living abroad have made entries in the voters’ register for the election, according to municipal authorities.

That compares with around 129,000 ex-pat Germans who did so for the last nationwide parliamentary election in 2021.

The German Foreign Office estimates that between 3 million and 4 million German citizens live outside the country, although not all of them are eligible to vote in German elections.

In order to vote, Germans abroad must be at least 18 years old, need to prove that they have ties to Germany and must have lived in Germany at some point within the last 25 years.