Any Singapore citizen residing overseas who satisfies the following qualifying criteria may apply to the Elections Department to be registered as an overseas elector to cast his vote by post:
is a citizen of Singapore (holder of pink NRIC);
is not less than 21 years of age;
is not disqualified from being an elector under any prevailing law;
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(i) has a Singapore residential address on his NRIC; or
(ii) if he is residing overseas, and has changed his NRIC address to an overseas address, he must have a contact address in Singapore that he has registered with the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA), also known as a Local Contact Address (LCA); and
has resided in Singapore for an aggregate of at least 30 days within the 3-year period prior to the date of application to be registered as an overseas elector.
In addition, the person will also be allotted a polling station in Singapore during an election, where he can go to cast his vote if he is back in Singapore on Polling Day.
Every overseas elector is allowed to vote only once during an election either by post or at the local polling station that has been allotted to him. Any overseas elector who goes to vote at the local polling station allotted to him will be required to make a declaration that he had not voted in the same election before he can be issued with a ballot paper.
Check your voting eligibility and apply to be registered as overseas elector and to vote by post via Voter Services using Singpass.
Voter ServicesVoting by Post
Counting of Overseas Votes
Overseas votes consist of postal ballot papers and votes cast in person at overseas polling stations. All return envelopes containing the postal ballot papers must be received no later than 10 days after Polling Day to be processed for counting.
If the overseas votes have impact on the outcome on the election, i.e. the total number of overseas votes cast for a contested electoral division in a Parliamentary Election, or for a contested Presidential Election, is greater than the difference between the number of local votes polled for the top two candidates or groups of candidates, the Returning Officer will defer the declaration of the candidate elected until the day the overseas votes are counted. If the overseas votes have no impact on the outcome of the election, the Returning Officer will declare the candidate to whom the greatest number of votes is given to be elected.
After the overseas votes are counted, the final results will be published in the Singapore Government Gazette.
Processing of Postal Votes
ELD will notify postal voters via email that their return envelopes have been received by the Returning Officer. They may also check the status of their return envelope via ELD’s Voter Services. An overseas voter who has successfully registered as a postal voter and has downloaded his or her postal ballot paper will be considered as a voter. This remains the case even if the Returning Officer does not subsequently receive the return envelope.
For more information on voting by post, you may refer to the FAQs or view the following video:
