Declining voter turnout: who exactly is losing sleep?

29 May 2009

Joseph Curtin

Do you care about the European Parliament elections? Although analysts and commentators continually point to the importance of the European Parliament and the amount of legislation it passes, it seems that we the people are quite relaxed about the whole thing.

Turnout has decreased in every election to the European Parliament since 1979, this notwithstanding the continued expansion of its competences. Despite the well intentioned efforts of MEPs and the Parliament in general to reach out to voters, not least by way of a campaign to ”get the vote out”, latest Europe-wide polls suggest that the turnout for election ’09 may not buck the trend.

A Europe-wide TNS poll conducted for La Fondation pour l'Innovation Politique conducted in March and April this year found that 53% of citizens were “not at all interested” or “rather not interested“ in the June elections, while only 46% of citizens claimed to be “very interested” or “rather interested”. In a November 2008 Eurobarometer survey, findings were similar (though Ireland topped the table with 60% of people declaring themselves “interested” in the upcoming elections). The uneducated, young and unemployed are least likely of all to vote.

This poses some interesting questions for the European Parliament and its members. First, is voter apathy unique to the European Parliament? If so, how big a problem is it for the legitimacy of the institution and can it be effectively addressed?

In the first case, it should be noted that elections over a wider geographical area such as Europe are always likely to face an uphill battle in convincing voters of their importance. Perhaps this can be attributed to geographical distance between representative and citizen – if all politics truly is local, what chance does the European Parliament really have?

A useful comparison is federal elections in the US – perhaps the most similar contest internationally. Since 1978, biannual election turnout has fluctuated between 36.4% and 56.8%, with the all time high achieved in 2008. Interestingly, turnout was never once in the 40s, but dipped to the 30s and rose above the 50% mark eight times in each case. In all eight elections where turnout exceeded 50%, elections to the Houses of Congress happened to coincide with a presidential contest.

This comparison casts the all time low turnout of 44% in the last European Parliamentary elections in a different light. This figure in fact compares very favourably with elections in the US which did not coincide with a presidential contest. Not bad for a Parliament that has less power or profile than the US Senate or Congress!

It also tells us that people get excited about voting for Presidents, or leaders. On all occasions where a presidential election was taking place, turnout was a minimum 15% higher. This is not, however, an option for European voters at the moment.

In answer to the first question, my rather inexact comparison with the US therefore suggests that voter apathy is not necessarily unique to the European Parliament and that the low levels of voter turnout in themselves are not a matter for urgent concern.

More worrying is the steady decline in turnout from 63% in 1979 to 44% in 2004. All the same, this trend shouldn’t be interpreted as a damning indictment of the Parliament. While political scientists, MEPs, politicians and Europhiles everywhere may be having sleepless nights, the fact of the matter is that a majority of citizens are probably not that bothered.

In the Eurobarometer survey cited above, 43% of Europeans declared themselves to have a neutral image of the Parliament, and nearly twice as many held a positive perception (31%) to those who have a negative perception. What this suggests to me is that if the people had a collective voice, they might be saying something like “don’t take it personally, it’s not that we hate you, we just don’t feel too strongly either way”.

So the message, perhaps, is that things are not as bad as the numbers suggest. Either way, these elections will soon be over, and then the Parliament can return to doing what it does best: working quietly away on behalf of the peoples of Europe addressing the biggest issues facing the continent. Maybe our priorities will always be predominantly local and the appeal of the Parliament consequently somewhat limited – it’s never going to be fixing the potholes in Potsdam, the signage in Greenwich, or the cycle lanes in Amiens, nor should it be.

Another lesson from the American comparison is that if the Parliament truly wants more attention from the voter, it might consider implementing a number of reforms which would make elections more  European. How about an offering an alternative between two opposing candidates, preferable running on distinctive policy platforms? A European Obama versus McCain would be interesting.

As an independent forum, the Institute does not express any opinions of its own. The views expressed in the article are the sole responsibility of the author.