Can he? In general, can/do popes vote in their home countries?
Argentina is the country whose citizenship you cannot legally lose (though dual citizenship is permitted), and they have mandatory* voting. So the Pope is still a citizen of Argentina and did vote or faced charges. I don’t think they allow exceptions.
* Edit: Not quite true. See replies.
That’s amazing
This is fascinating. Assuming he follows the law of the land per the Bible (per my minimal understanding of the Bible…) he would be sinning to note vote. So the pope most likely voted by absentee ballot in Argentina, but also likely has diplomatic immunity in Argentina, and therefore could not be prosecuted for failure to vote.
I don’t think you are eligible for diplomatic immunity if you are a citizen. He might choose not to extradite himself but he plans a visit in 2024.
I think he either voted for Sérgio Massa, whom he supported publicly, or symbolically cast a blank ballot. The other options are to declare that he was ill or 500 km from the nearest polling place, or pay a 50-500 peso fine. None of these are off-limits for somebody with a good diplomatic position and a large amount of staff.
Iven if he can’t get true diplomatic immunity, I don’t think Argentina would trouble a foreign monarch over a 500 peso fine, even if he came back into the country.
Not even just a foreign monarch. The pope. In a country with a lot of Catholics. Imagine them trying to arrest the pope. Likely even the police and military would revolt. But you did give me a great idea for an ai image prompt!
Yes. I just listed the legal options I found. The law and its enforcement are different things: most domestic non-voters are not punished either, and they are likely going to let him pass even without a formal excuse; it would harm their reputation to be that petty.
Have you ever been caught by Czech Hunter?
No, I’m too ugly. AI says I look like this and I’m not much prettier IRL. But the number of fake (hidden fee) taxis, Fake Taxis and fake Fake Taxis is larger than the number of honest taxis.
500 peso fine? How will he ever be able to pay that? /s
According to google 500 argentine peso is 1.43USD
The law is apparently old and not enforced. The other consequence is that offenders cannot run for office for 3 years but I doubt they check every municipal candidate. I imagune it could turn up as a minor affair, though.
Pope is technically head of state or another country so it is probably bad to vote in any election just from the perspective of looks. The pope should be above politics.
This is an interesting question as the Pope is technically the head of state of another country
I know The Vatican constitutes a state, but i don’t think it constitutes a country.
It is a indipendant state/country, with a ruling king, enforced borders, its own passports and even a standing army.
Vatican City, officially the Vatican City State, is a landlocked independent country, city-state, microstate, and enclave within Rome, Italy.
They were given a tax-free country from Mussolini for being chill about the whole Holocaust thing
What the international law cares about is “sovereign states” or “sovereign subjects of international law” not countries which is a much more informal term. Sovereign states technically don’t even need a territory - 122 states have official diplomatic relations with the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (not to be confused with the Republic of Malta) which has had no territory since 1799.
Sovereign states don’t need territory? This changes everything!
Nope, you just need to convince a hundred something control freaks on a power trip that you are one of them and that they should give you a bunch of privileges, including legal immunity. Easy.
On a global scale they are synonyms xd
Which is made even more confusing by British “countries” (🏴🏴🏴🇯🇪).
Eh, the British “countries” are countries in name only. They don’t really fit any of the usual things people would think of as constituting a country.
In reality, they’re constituted like less than the state of a federation like the US, Germany, or Australia. A state has a constitutional right to its governance, and cedes some power to the federal government. The devolved governments of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are rights granted by Westminster, and could be taken away at will. Nothing Biden, or Trump, or Mike Johnson wanted could ever take away Maine’s right to its own governance like that.
I know. Hence quotation marks.
Oh right, the “quotation marks”
The technical term for quotation marks used that way is “scare quotes”.
Doesn’t even matter. It he didn’t there is a 50 peso fine that you can pay in 24 month installments.
Literally paying 0.5 cents in 2 years for missing a mandatory voting law lmao
