This article analyzes the turbulent history of diaspora voting policy in South Africa following its celebrated transition to democracy (1994-2014). After organizing foreign voting for the watershed 1994 election, the government abolished external voting until a 2009 Constitutional Court ruling mandated widespread diaspora participation. The details of the South African case reveal an intensely partisan divide over the inclusion of South Africans abroad. Perceptions of the diaspora by the major political parties shaped both policy provision and implementation. With its two policy reversals, the case of South Africa also suggests a number of broader theoretical implications, including the critical variable of how diaspora voting becomes law, as well as the centrality of the political party as a key locus of analysis.