No, voting is not a right, it's a privilege, countered Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng.

Who's right; who's wrong?

Mr Tay is a constitutional lawyer; he should know.

On the other hand, Mr Wong is the Home Affairs Minister; he should know. (sic)

If you were thrown into confusion by the apparently-conflicting statements, you're not alone. I was too. So when I got a call Apr 24 from someone asking to clarify the issue, I decided the time had come to do some constitutional digging.

And this is what I found: nowhere in the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore is the right to vote spelt out, far less cast in stone.

Other rights there are aplenty: the right to freedom of religion; the right to freedom of assembly; and the right to free association. Not unbridled rights, of course: there are qualifiers about maintaining law and order and so on.

The right to vote? Nah.

Constitutional law expert Kevin Tan confirmed it: there is no constitutional right to vote. "Otherwise, there would have been a lot of litigation on this already," he said.

A researcher who has studied the Constitution confirmed it. (She also pointed out that there is no constitutional guarantee of the equality of women before the law, but that is another story.)

So what could Mr Tay have meant when he said voting is a right? I called him, but found out that he was in the United States.

Without the benefit of his input, here's what I think he may have meant: Voting is a moral right that comes with citizenship.

It is a right that flows from natural justice. "It should be the birthright of every Singaporean, otherwise why be a citizen?" said Dr Tan.

Article 43 of the Parliamentary Elections Act makes voting compulsory. In Mr Tay's mind, this implies it is a duty to vote.

The question arises: Can there be duty without right?

Those who drafted Singapore's constitution during its early days must have thought so. But then, the environment they were in was very different from today's. Few people were educated. Most had to be taught how to vote.

Even more had to be taught what the vote meant.

In today's Singapore, and more so in the Singapore to come, will duty without right go down well? I doubt.

The controversy over the right of Singaporeans overseas to vote is a case in point. Accustomed for years to having the right to vote while in Singapore, it comes as a jolt to young Singaporeans that they lose it when they go overseas.

One reader e-mailed me: "How will these Singaporeans feel? How will they feel when they see thousands of Filipinos, Thais and Indonesians in Singapore rush to their embassies to cast votes on voting day but realise they cannot do likewise overseas?"

The fact that the government has stipulated who may or may not vote overseas makes it clear that voting is a privilege - as Mr Wong stated in no uncertain terms in parliament.

There is nothing new or unusual about voters having to satisfy certain criteria, of course: Section 6 of the Parliamentary Elections Act spells out a string of conditions under which voters may be disqualified.

The main ones: having a criminal record, an unsound mind, or taking up citizenship in another country.

Technically, a person overseas retains the right to vote as long as his name is on the electoral register.

It's just that, for reasons of its own, the government has not deigned to facilitate the exercising of that right.

However long you have been away, you keep your right to vote if you make sure your name stays on the register and you come back every polling day to cast your ballot.

The price of the air ticket and the time consumed is the price you pay for the right to vote. I don't know how many Singaporeans out there have kept their vote this way, but if there are any, I would certainly like to hear from them.

Why does the government not make it easier for citizens overseas to vote? Why has it been so niggardly about setting up overseas polling stations or allowing the postal vote?

I see two possible reasons. One has to do with the past, and the other the future. In the early days only two main groups of Singaporeans went overseas: the scholars and the fugitives. The former came back; the latter did not.

So deep is the imprint of history in the government's mind that it leaves its mark still on today's policy measures. For instance, more scholars break their bonds nowadays compared to the past, but that has not stopped the government from giving those on its scholarships a special dispensation from residency requirements in overseas voting.

Conversely, the government retains its suspicion towards those who leave Singapore of their own accord, a suspicion which took root in the heady days of the ruling party's struggle for survival and which has yet to be overcome.

Some say the suspicion is well-founded, because the more Singaporeans study and work overseas for longer periods, the less stake they will have here.

The result: They are more prepared to play punk with the vote.

Others question this, saying that the government's denial of the vote to overseas Singaporeans (or more accurately, refusal to make it easy for them to vote) has nothing with the its concern about the country's long-term future.

It reflects nothing more than the ruling party's urge to preserve its share of the vote, they say.

Whatever it is, the tug of war over the overseas vote tells me one thing: There is something about the vote that gives it an importance beyond the material.

As one of my readers said in an e-mail: 'People won't leave Singapore because they can't vote, but those overseas may come back because they can.'

At present the vote is in the never-never land between being a right and a privilege. Where it finally lands will mark Singapore's eventual political maturity.