Most live in other parts of the UK, yet none will be able to vote when Scotland holds a referendum next month on whether to say cheerio to the oldunion.
That means around one in every five people born in Scotland does not have a say in the country's biggest decision in 300 years. By contrast, more than 650,000 residents who weren't born in Scotland do get a vote.
Is this fair? It certainly left some of my Australian friends scratching their heads.
They wonder why a just-arrived Spanish student in Edinburgh who knows little of her new country should trump a native whose values and sense of self and belonging are inextricably linked to the place of his birth.
Questions of prosperity and identity lie at the heart of the independence debate in Scotland.
Will they be better or worse off going it alone? Will the society more accurately reflect the aspirations of its people? Do they want the intangible enshrined in legal statehood and citizenship?
If New Zealand ever considered joining Australia, the debate would be similar, albeit the other way round.
For those in Scotland, the day-to-day practicalities of independence are unsurprisingly paramount. A Scottish passport will be scant consolation if your living standards have slumped.
Not such a pressing issue for expats, of course, who can afford to speculate on the economic consequences without having to worry about enduring them.
It's 15 years since I left my homeland. I'm now a dual citizen. I have two passports. One says I'm Australian. The other says I'm British. It's certainly been useful for avoiding queues in airports travelling between the two countries.
But although I've chosen to live in a fantastic country half a world away, I still consider myself Scottish.
Like your favourite sports team, sense of identity is tribal, and forged at a young age.
I'm one of "Thatcher's children", who grew up in a country that took great pride in its egalitarian DNA but for almost two decades knew nothing but distant, self-worshipping Tory rule.
When "that bloody woman" died last year, I cringed at the spontaneous celebrations in some parts of the country. But anyone who lived through the devastating social effects of her Government's destruction of Scotland's industrial heartland would have understood the sentiment.
Last week Scotland's First Minister, Alex Salmond, campaigner-in-chief for a Yes vote, quipped that there were more pandas in Edinburgh Zoo (two) than Tory MPs in Scotland (one). British Prime Minister David Cameron can thank Maggie's legacy for that.
It's one of Salmond's main selling points. By voting Yes, Scots will actually get what they vote for.
But who gets to be a Scot?
I might think of Big Country's The Crossing as one of the great albums, and I get sentimental watching Hampden half-time sing-alongs on YouTube - admittedly, often the best part of a Scotland football match.
However, historic attachment hardly qualifies me, or any other far-off Scot, for a say in the country's future.
We should leave that to the people who have chosen to make their lives there, no matter where they come from.
That decision - no matter how politically motivated - means the nationalism debate in Scotland is founded on civic rather than ethnic terms.
So my parents, brother and the Spanish student get to vote while my sister - who lives in England - will, like me, have to sit on the sidelines.
Doesn't get much more egalitarian than that.
