Home is where you can't vote: The problem of "permanent address"

They are among thousands of Malé residents who cannot vote for the capital's city council – migrants frozen in an electoral system that ties their voice to a "permanent address" they no longer call home. 

Of the 9,576 people from Hulhudhoo, Meedhoo, and Feydhoo who are eligible to vote in Saturday's public referendum – which will decide on creating separate councils for the three islands or sticking with the Addu City Council – more than 40 percent are re-registered to vote in Malé.

This crisis of representation emerged from decades of mass migration in search of healthcare, education and employment, a steady exodus that continued this year with 1,200 students transferring to Malé from schools on other islands.

“[We’re] living and dying in Malé while people pretend we don’t live here as migrants, while pouring all our [expletive] money into landlord pockets,” said a 30 year-old woman who has lived in the capital since primary school, but found herself excluded from the list of successful applicants for social housing in March.

Her family is among non-native residents who are forced to pay exorbitant rents in the Greater Malé Region, home to 40 percent of the population.

Migrants from Addu – the southernmost atoll and second-largest population centre – make up over six percent of Malé's resident population, accounting for the largest block of voters who are ineligible to elect council members in charge of municipal affairs for the streets where they actually live.

The Malé City Council serves a population of 210,053 people (including expatriates), the majority of whom do not have any say in governing their neighbourhoods. According to the 2022 census, 85,077 Maldivians – 54 percent of Malé's population – are registered on other islands. 

Internal migration has dramatically altered Malé's demographics over the past 50 years. Between 2000 and 2006, migrants overtook people registered to permanent addresses in the 2.2-square mile capital island. 

Of the current population of 252,768 people across Malé, Hulhumalé and Villimalé, only 76,556 are native to Malé. 

By law, all Maldivians are required to be registered to a house for issuance of their national identity card and passport. This permanent address determines their electoral constituency as well as eligibility for social housing and other benefits.

Notwithstanding the constitutional right for every citizen "to move to, and take up residence on any inhabited island of the Maldives" and to have "equal access to the receipt of rights and benefits from any island where he has established residency," long-term residents of Malé are expected to elect MPs and councillors for islands they barely remember.  

The consequences extend beyond local government, according to election officials who have long grappled with the issue.

Ismail Habeeb, a former long-serving member of the Elections Commission, spoke last year about drafting legislation and discussing proposed changes with parliament, stressing the seriousness of "the problem of permanent address" in voting rights.

"Especially when voting for local council elections, it’s a very sad thing. Someone who’s never been to the island, who’s never seen the island, they’re voting on behalf of that island. This is something that no other place in the world would do," he said.

“It shouldn’t be the permanent address. People should vote for the place they live. When we were studying abroad, we voted. I voted for the local government elections of the United Kingdom."

The Maldivian population is highly mobile. At least 46 percent of Maldivians have migrated or relocated at least once in their life, the 2022 census found. It is not uncommon for a person to be born on one island, be registered to an address on a second island, and to live most of their life on a third island.

Many pregnant women from smaller islands travel to Malé or neighbouring islands with better healthcare facilities to give birth. The newborn may be registered to the house of one of the parents. As the child grows older, the family may relocate to an island with a better school before eventually moving back. Fathers may spend years on a resort island after moving their families to Malé.

This fluidity makes it difficult to capture and document resident populations. Starting in 2014, the National Bureau of Statistics added a question to the census to identify a person’s "place of usual residence" based on whether he or she has lived or intends to live in a home for more than a year.

Permanent address, however, is more than just the name on one's ID card. For many people, it is an inherent part of their identity that signifies their family and home island. People's nicknames, monikers and businesses are often named after their ancestral home. In the 1990s, American anthropologist Elizabeth Colton described the house as the “basic building block of the Maldivian political system of the elite.”

In 2024, a public perception study by the Human Rights Commission found that 60 percent of respondents supported the current system of voting for the constituency of their permanent address. This included 66 percent of first-time voters.

"It is likely that there is not adequate awareness among first-time voters due to a lack of widespread discourse on this systemic change and low participation of youth in politics," the commission speculated. 

Among those who supported voting based on their place of usual residence, 46 percent cited the direct impact on their life as the reason for wanting to change the system.

In an assessment ahead of last year's parliamentary elections, Transparency Maldives highlighted the gap between residence and representation as a "serious issue" affecting thousands of Malé residents, who are forced to "vote for constituencies where they may no longer have key socio-economic and other interests."

Transparency previously flagged the lack of an official database on current addresses in a 2021 review of the electoral legal framework. The failure to maintain an accurate database makes it "difficult for people to prove whether they are residing in another part of the country or for how long they have been resident of another constituency," the NGO explained, noting how the place of residence is not considered in allocating constituents or drawing up voting districts.  

"The resulting electoral framework weakens effective representation for these citizens who can only vote for their place of birth and have no influence on their place of long-term residence," Transparency Maldives observed.

"This may be one factor contributing to lower interest in participating in such elections, particularly local council elections where the detachment from elected official to the voter is greater than a member of parliament."