Shocking, I can understand the low turnout for the European elections as we've seen across Europe over many years. But I don't understand why it's so low for the General Election, what's going on.
5th general election in the past 3 years. Also we had a round of local elections (with a second round for mayors who didn't get 50% in the first round) and a presidential election (also with a second round). That's 9 votes in 3 years. People are sick of voting.
There's also the point that our electoral lists have not been updated in a long time. Meanwhile the population is shrinking. So there are a lot of "dead souls" that are part of the low percentages. That being said - yes - the turnout has been dropping for quite some time.
No trust in the political system, rising nihilism, etc. are the playing factors.
I guess it is similar to what happened in Lithuania. Four weeks before European parliament voting, there was the presidential election (+citizenship referendum), which had 59 per cent turnout. Then two weeks after there was a second round of the presidential election (reaching 50 per cent turnout), which was considered extremely boring as the President expectedly won against the Prime Minister in a landslide. One more election after two weeks, with the least understandable impact on daily life, proved to be too much for most, considering there are two more votings (two rounds of Parliament election) waiting on October this year.
Extreme corruption in the Balkan countries has made people really lose any trust in democracy, is my guess. In my country, 3.500.000(60%) people voted to say "no" to austerity measures proposed by the EU&IMF back in 2015, the government changed a few commas in the proposal and went on to pass it(80% of the parliament.) A lot of Greeks feel, justifiably to some extend, that their vote has power with an asterisk, and can be cancelled any time, like it did when 3.500.000 voted for one thing and the next day the parliament did the other.
There is simply nobody to vote for. The country has been ran by an oligarchic mafia for decades and voting can’t solve it. Just the last election cycle, the party that was created to oppose the highly corrupt ruling party formed a coalition with the very party it was supposed to destroy
Well in Hungary, only reason why its almost 60%, is because there is finally (after 14 years) a worthy opponent to the wonderful orban regime, the newly formed TISZA party, which is actually led by an ex-government party somewhat young (43 years old) diplomat, who got enough of the system after the pe\*\*phile government scandal in beginning of the year.
There should really be a government requirement to reform the voting system if turnout goes under 50% - they must be doing something really wrong if it's consistently poor. People feeling disenfranchised is a big problem.
Voting isn't mandatory, you can vote blank. Showing up is mandatory and there are penalties and they are enforced.
It works this way: when entering the voting place, there are 2 people with the same list. Both look at your ID, they go through their list of expected persons for that voting place (these are decided beforehand, so ever voting place also has a predictable turnout, which has other advantages regarding organizing), and they cross of your name.
After the election, the lists are checked if your name is crossed of.
Expect a fine if you're not crossed off.
When in the voting boot, you do you, don't vote or draw a picture for what it's worth.
All those blanco or illigimate votes are counted as blanco. These blanco votes are assigned to the majority afterwards. So even if you don't vote, you're saying that you agree with the majority of voters. This gives a very good intent to actually vote, a drawback is that you often get some protest votes on the extreme parties.
Some parties want to abolish this system because they think they can gain in the final results. They're assholes imo, this system works great and no one can't say their voice wasn't heard afterwards.
Source: am Belgian
Edit: got corrected and they are right: blanco votes are counted, but not assigned to any party.
Are there any statistics regarding what percentage of people are actually fined for not showing up? I read in a belgian newspaper that since 2007, there was barely anyone fined.
I think that if I was a person who hasn't voted for 15 years, I'd be happy to have my voting right revoked instead of getting another fine. I'd be unlikely to have voted anyways if I did keep my voting right.
(Note: This is just a hypothetical, I am not such a person, I vote every time)
I still see the problem.
It also makes no sense to punish smbd with the thibg he Anyway did.
And it is completely undemocratic. You should try to bring even such people people back to take part and not to take a fundamental right from them
As a young guy from Belgium I also thought that but then I voted for the first time and was proven wrong when I realized that everyone around me started to care about politics at the same time, and it actually helps society make better and more educated decisions. Sincerely, you are wrong.
There is also an argument to be made about how mandating to show up at the voting booth makes it more likely for vulnerable subgroups of the population to be better repredented in the voting.
For example people that have a hard time making ends meet might otherwise decide not to vote because they prioritize work, but you do need them to be properly represented in parliament.
Thank you! Please keep on believing, cause the day too many of us stop believing in democracy, only the madmen go to the polls. And madmen elect dictators.
It's not. it's mandatory to show up at the votingbooth. Many people vote cause you're their anyway so why not vote then. but if you want you can leave your ballot completely empty.
Honestly, a big part of me knew that would be the result, the moment we found out how many seats hdz and dp had.
But watching most running from responsibility was at least entertaining, and this whole situation with Bartulica running off to Bruxelles with his mandate and ignoring the members of his party for two days is a cherry on top.
We gave a third mandate in a row to a party that's actually been convicted for corruption, our overlord HDZ.
Yes, the whole party.
Oh, and did I mention that they've managed to steal 14 million euros, just during the last mandate, and just through one public company?
And then they entered the coalition with the hard right party... that's mainly made from ex HDZ members that had been thrown out when current prime minister Plenković took over the party, since they were too far from the centre for his tastes. Significant percentage of them was also too dumb too hide their own theft and corruption.
And yes, two of their 14 parliamentary members were already caught by the media during this month. One for buying a diploma, the other for trying to hide his property. We sent the other one to the eu parliament - that's the guy in the ferrari. And he was driven by a guy convicted for tryign to murder someone.
>Oh, and did I mention that they've managed to steal 14 million euros, just during the last mandate, and just through one public company?
Has to be higher. Just the INA affair was 1 billion Kuna, or 132 million euros. And then there's the whole gas for a cent thing after that.
When you write it all out like that, it really is a lot worse than getting the corruption slowly trickling in, one affair at a time.
14 million? Those are rookie numbers, our overlords would consider that barely worth to steal anymore. Welcome to FIDESZ, and just in general most right aligned parties.
I mean, they also got out of INA (which you guys stole) 132 million euros during this or the last year. 14 million is just the last affair I've remembered.
The german numbers also just started rising last elections. Before that, it was between 40 and 50% as well. But the last two elections got a little more attention.
Euroelections were always like that here. I guess people don't perceive them as that much important, since decisions are made far away and we are sending delegation of 50 people to 700 sits EU parliament.
But I'm really happy with your results. A I understand the new government that has to do a lot of work on the instututions and reform in general. And given that the EU elections are often used to express discontent with the governing party it's huge they came in first.
So at least that's my take form outside. What do you think?
This is also true for the left extreme. Extremists are generally more into politics than moderates since they see the issue as more urgent and therefore requiring more extreme solutions, so when turnouts are low the extremists on both the left and the right are more likely to vote tend to be over-represented.
This obviously doesn't mean that both extremes will get the same amount of votes, one extreme can be more popular regardless of turnout, just that the parties on either extreme will get a higher percentage of the vote than they would have if the turnout was larger.
EDIT: [This research article](https://doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2020.1774507) is directly about compulsory voting and right-wing populism. Its abstract:
> When all citizens vote, the influence of radical parties decreases. Despite this being a central justification for compulsory voting in the past, it has been absent from contemporary debates. I examine the normative and empirical premises of the ‘moderation thesis’ in relation to radical right-wing populist parties today and suggest that, under certain conditions, compulsory voting can limit these parties’ appeal. First, it replaces the excessive mobilisation of discontented voters with a more universal mobilisation. Second, it addresses the problem of underrepresentation offering a more pluralist type of representation than the populist one. And third, it reverses socioeconomic inequalities that drive support for populism through the egalitarian effects that compulsory voting has on policymaking. My central thesis is this: because compulsory voting embodies inclusivist, pluralist and egalitarian values, it addresses some of the grievances that drive support for right-wing populist parties without carrying the same normative costs as populism.
I'll leave the original comment below, since it's probably still interesting :)
---
I also was curious - apparently there is a grain of truth to this, though the survey paper I quote suggests there is an effect, but it is very small - and in particular much smaller than we might imagine based on the fact that young, poor, and working-class voters are significantly less likely to vote when voting is not compulsory. The relevant paragraphs I found are on page 12:
> Scholars who have studied this question have mostly – but not exclusively – focused on
> analyzing whether the Democratic party in the US, and left-wing parties in a European
> context, suffer from low turnout rates (Brunell and DiNardo 2004; Martinez and Gill 2005;
> Pacek and Radcliff 1995; Lutz 2007). **The assumption of this stream of research is that left-
> of-center parties will better represent the interests of the working class, the poor, and the
> lower educated. If such parties indeed fare less well when turnout is low, the implication
> is that unequal participation also entails unequal representation in Parliament.**
>
> **A number of studies find evidence that is in line with this basic assumption.** Analyses
> that simulate the election outcome under full turnout in the United States, for example,
> indicate that Democrats would do better under high turnout. This effect, however, seems
> quite variable (Brunell and DiNardo 2004; Martinez and Gill 2005), is generally small
> (Highton and Wolfinger 2001) and it rarely changes the outcome of an election (Citrin et
> al. 2003). **Others have shown that left-of-center parties would benefit, or have benefited,
> from high turnout in countries in Europe** (Kohler 2011; Pacek and Radcliff 1995).
> Furthermore, a simulation based on survey data in Australia – where voting is
> compulsory – suggest that the decline in turnout that would follow from abolishing
> compulsory voting would lead the left-wing party Labour to lose votes (Mackerras and
> McAllister 1999). Focusing on Australia as well but exploiting variation in the
> introduction of compulsory voting between states, Fowler (2013) also finds that Labour
> benefits from higher turnout under compulsory voting.
>
> **Even though the poor and the lower educated are less likely to turn out to vote – in
> particular in low turnout elections, it seems as if left-of-center parties are not doing worse
> when turnout is low.** Why is the effect so small? Scholars have pointed to two
> explanations, that can be complementary. First, it has been argued that the absence of a
> clear partisan effect of low turnout is a consequence of the fact that the preferences and
> opinions of abstainers are not that different from those of voters. There is no clear
> indication, therefore, that abstainers prefer the more progressive policies that left-of-
> center parties stand for (Highton and Wolfinger 2001; Rubenson et al. 2007; van der Eijk
> and van Egmond 2007). Second, contextual factors – and electoral rules in particular –
> have an impact on the size of partisan effects. According to Ferwerda (2014), in order for
> a decline in turnout to translate into ‘a meaningful loss in party vote share, there must
> simultaneously be a large decline in turnout between elections as well as a large skew in
> preferences between the voting and non-voting population’. Ferwerda (2014) argues that
> the combination of both is very rare. A first reason is that declines in turnout are generally
> fairly modest. Secondly, a large skew in party preferences is unlikely when there are
> multiple parties, which holds especially in fragmented party systems. As a result, a
> decline in turnout levels only rarely alters the outcome of an election.
Blais, André, Ruth Dassonneville, and Filip Kostelka, 'Political Equality and Turnout', 2020, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198825081.013.20.
PDF available [here](https://repository.essex.ac.uk/28811/4/Political%20equality%20and%20turnout_240720.pdf ).
Its one of the highest in recent history not counting the 2022 presidential elections. Feels weird seeing it as a bad result, though it objectively is.
Seats in the European Parliament should be divided between countries based on number of votes cast instead of total population. Turnout would be through the roof.
As a Lithuanian it's a general lack of advertising and information. Nobody was hyped for it. It was hard to research the candidates.
The presidential voting turnout was ~50% for the 2nd poll, and 60% in the 1st one.
Estonians really have no excuse, we can vote online. But since we elect only 7 MEPs, many people think there's no point in participating in the elections.
That's the wrong way to think about it. An Estonian vote is in fact much more meaningful than a German vote. Germany as 1 seat for ~645.000 eligible voters, Estonia has 1 seat for ~140.000 eligible voters.
I think in smaller countries there is a sense that they are simply just along for the ride anyway and all you can really do, is brace for impact and try to survive as best as you can, when larger countries go over your head.
Let me introduce you to numerous statues of our first president:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/croatia/comments/18gsmm6/ljepota\_je\_u\_o%C4%8Dima\_pasivnog\_promatra%C4%8Da/](https://www.reddit.com/r/croatia/comments/18gsmm6/ljepota_je_u_o%C4%8Dima_pasivnog_promatra%C4%8Da/)
Be optimistic, at least statue will be so bad that it will become grotesquely funny.
People in red countries still don't understand that they can contribute to EU by sending correct representatives. They just see the decisions of EU as an order from above and take it for granted.
Why do you think the countries in red shit on EU? I know we in Croatia don't. It's more of not having anyone to vote for, has nothing to do with EU per se
They don't shit on the EU, they just don't understand it. It's something that happens somewhere else. Some of these are post-communist countries. The lower educated working class people, born somewhere around 1950-1970 spent their best years in a failing Soviet dictatorship, all they know is that whatever happens, they have to survive somehow and they don't trust anyone or anything. The Soviet Union collapsed when they were roughly 30-somethings and the change has simply been too fast for them to adapt.
In my opinion the eu parliament is probably the most important institution. As it decides who is going to be the defacto leader of the eu. Additionally they also discuss about new laws.
It doesn't matter who's the face of the parliament. The only institution that can propose laws is the Commission. The parliament can discuss these laws, but even then, these laws then have to be approved by the council of ministers.
Eh, what are 13 members (already split by party lines) in a 700 member body going to do? The German extra-parliamentary parties nearly have as much seats as my entire country.
I really don't understand this sentiment. I can turn this around and say that your Croatian vote has at least twice as much influence as my German vote, cause 96 seat for 84m people is less than 12 for 3.5m.
Sure, in an election with 450m inhabitants your individual vote is always gonna be a tiny influence.
Massive disapointed and the lack of motivation caused by results of last elections, which happened 2 months ago. Although we usually dont have high turnout for EU elections, but at least it was 30% last EU elections
TLDR: The ruling party, HDZ, who are the successors of the Croatian communist party and control all the country's institutions (they have many times more members than all the other parties combined and you need to be a member or have a connection to get a lot of public sector jobs) reunited with their far-right offshoot because they couldn't form the government on their own even though the system is rigged in their favor.
Now our democracy will continue to deteriorate as it did before (laws destroying the free press, more HDZ shills in the courts and basically everywhere) but we also get to listen to some weird paranoia about Serbs on a daily basis and a bunch of other pretty stupid stuff.
SDP is the successor of the croatian communist party. HDZ just had a lot of communists when it was formed. Then again, if you were politically active before the croatian independence, it was hard not to be a communist since the communists party was the only legal party.
The corrupt government, won again, partly by giving everybody in public sector 200-600 eur NET pay increase to motivate them to vote for the same. We had the chance but In the end the opposition did some bad moves like not going together, and we lost. Most of us lost a lot of motivation for anything politics related.
We don't have high turnouts in any election. It's difficult to pinpoint why, but someone already mentioned the political illiteracy. For example, it's socially acceptable and even favored when one has 0 knowledge about politics or politicians, due to it being considered a dirty profession.
Also there is a lack of alternative ways to participate, such as through postal voting.
No one really cares about EU elections + we had parliamentary elections earlier this year and the campaign for those ate up people's nerves.
And no one cares about EU elections because it's understood that we don't really have a say in it on this level, which is ultimately true.
Everything below 70% is not good and it just means that the parties who get all their supporters to vote get better results
Yet I also have to say that some people have a good excuse, like there were massive floodings in parts of Austria and those towns/villages had no real chance to vote
PS: Today also the dead body of a 77 year old was found who went missing on Sunday, as he drove into town to vote despite the floodings but never made it back home.
Some people literally risk their lives to vote while others just don't care (and complain)
It's only a matter of time before a politician starts preaching that democracy is not the political system that people want any more.
And these numbers seem to agree.
Note 89.82% of Belgians voted. I lived in Brussels in the early 70’s and found out it is a civic duty to vote and you are fined if you do not vote.
“The absentees break the law and risk a fine of 40 to 80 euros. Repeat offenders even risk a fine of up to 200 euros. People who consistently (four times in 15 years) refuse to vote, will be punished with a ban on voting.”
I know it's still low, but Romania just a little over 50%!!! I'm a little happy that a lot more people decided to vote, which is not that popular here :[
I would make fun of you, but we've been voting for the third time for "Die PARTEI", which translates to "The Party", but is actually an acronym for "Party for Work, Rule of Law, Animal Rights, Advancement of the Elite and Grassroots Democracy\* Initiative". It's a spin-off of a satirical magazine. They've used the last two times they've been elected to make a lot of depressing content about the state of the european union.
\*) "Grassroots Democracy" is loosely translated
My mom said she has never voted in an EU election. She asked how often they were. I said its every 5 years. She was like "oh really". People have zero clue and dont care.
those 30 something percent in Slovakia are actually really impressive for EU elections, i think it's even highest voting turn out on in EU elections here but don't quote me on that
ironic how people like to complain about politics, wages, standards of living etc. but thet can't even make 1 hour of their time to go and vote. I know people who went to barbeque the same day and couldn't give a shit about the voting. We blame the governments but we deserve them.
40,4 % is the turnout out of all who had the right to vote, including those who live abroad. 42,4 % is the domestic turnout.
https://tulospalvelu.vaalit.fi/EPV-2024/fi/aanestys1.html
People have issue X
Left: i will solve issue Y
Right: i will solve issue Z
Centro: i will join the coalition with whoever has most votes
Nobody solve issue X, naive people ":0 why Is there such a low turnout?"
So Sweden went from 55% in 2019 to 51.7%. That did surprise me at first because this election did seem to galvanize alot of people. Now i kinda wanna know the demographics for the vote and see who chose to abstain.
I wonder what could be causing this. Maybe people don’t want parlamentarism and democracy that never get anything done. The greater scheme of things has to change.
It turns out you can get elected into the Bulgarian parliament with 7000 votes. A fringe party managed to get in with less than 80 000 votes. Maybe I should consider a career change.
Broadcast populist bullshit on social media and then hope that 10% of those go and vote for you.
Tournout would have been much lower in Romania, however the EP elections were merged with the local ones, so you got a lot of rural voters who normally don’t give a shit about the EP.
That's a turnout of \~34% in Bulgaria for combined General Elections + European Elections. Send help.
If I do, will the help actually reach you or be swiped by a politician on the way?
Damn lol, Finland woke up today & chose violence. Not that you're wrong...
Nah, Finland is 404.. it's confirmed, Find land does not exist ;-)
The politician will put a nice placard that your funds were successfully sent and absorped, so we'll get that at least.
😂
Shocking, I can understand the low turnout for the European elections as we've seen across Europe over many years. But I don't understand why it's so low for the General Election, what's going on.
5th general election in the past 3 years. Also we had a round of local elections (with a second round for mayors who didn't get 50% in the first round) and a presidential election (also with a second round). That's 9 votes in 3 years. People are sick of voting.
While that's true I just had a look at the election turnout history and the last time Bulgaria had decent turnout (over 60%) was way back in 1996.
There's also the point that our electoral lists have not been updated in a long time. Meanwhile the population is shrinking. So there are a lot of "dead souls" that are part of the low percentages. That being said - yes - the turnout has been dropping for quite some time. No trust in the political system, rising nihilism, etc. are the playing factors.
I guess it is similar to what happened in Lithuania. Four weeks before European parliament voting, there was the presidential election (+citizenship referendum), which had 59 per cent turnout. Then two weeks after there was a second round of the presidential election (reaching 50 per cent turnout), which was considered extremely boring as the President expectedly won against the Prime Minister in a landslide. One more election after two weeks, with the least understandable impact on daily life, proved to be too much for most, considering there are two more votings (two rounds of Parliament election) waiting on October this year.
Extreme corruption in the Balkan countries has made people really lose any trust in democracy, is my guess. In my country, 3.500.000(60%) people voted to say "no" to austerity measures proposed by the EU&IMF back in 2015, the government changed a few commas in the proposal and went on to pass it(80% of the parliament.) A lot of Greeks feel, justifiably to some extend, that their vote has power with an asterisk, and can be cancelled any time, like it did when 3.500.000 voted for one thing and the next day the parliament did the other.
Most people have definitely lost hope in the state.
There is simply nobody to vote for. The country has been ran by an oligarchic mafia for decades and voting can’t solve it. Just the last election cycle, the party that was created to oppose the highly corrupt ruling party formed a coalition with the very party it was supposed to destroy
For context it's the 6th general election in Bulgaria in just over 3 years, people are understandably tired
Well in Hungary, only reason why its almost 60%, is because there is finally (after 14 years) a worthy opponent to the wonderful orban regime, the newly formed TISZA party, which is actually led by an ex-government party somewhat young (43 years old) diplomat, who got enough of the system after the pe\*\*phile government scandal in beginning of the year.
Christ, you had combined elections as well? They really fucked us good with combined elections up here.
There should really be a government requirement to reform the voting system if turnout goes under 50% - they must be doing something really wrong if it's consistently poor. People feeling disenfranchised is a big problem.
I guess it's harder to get a higher turnout when more than half of your population is abroad. :shrugs:
IMO any election below 50% turnout should be automatically voided.
I think it doesn't make sense like why we need votes of people who doesn't want to vote for any specific reason in the first place.
Your government isn't legit bro, lmao.
Voting is mandatory in Belgium!
It's also mandatory in Bulgaria 🤣 no penalty however if you don't vote.
Same here, by law there is a penalty though, but last person that got persecuted for not voting here was in 2003.
That guy must have been really pissed! I imagine I would be haha
Haha probably, not sure how much the fine was back then but now it's around 40-80€
We have to show up. no need to vote for anyone, you can vote blank. It's a small difference.
Voting blank still counts as a vote tho, no? It wouldn't skew these statics only someone who didn't vote at all would
If it mandatory how it isn't 100%? And what happens to the ones who doesn't vote?
Nothing. It's like pirating a movie. It's illegal, but you don't get punished in any way.
Unless you do it in Germany
Shit I gotta start downloading a bunch of games before I move to germany
Good vpns are helpful
Yea i’d rather pay 3€ once and download a bunch of stuff than 60€ for a game
Voting isn't mandatory, you can vote blank. Showing up is mandatory and there are penalties and they are enforced. It works this way: when entering the voting place, there are 2 people with the same list. Both look at your ID, they go through their list of expected persons for that voting place (these are decided beforehand, so ever voting place also has a predictable turnout, which has other advantages regarding organizing), and they cross of your name. After the election, the lists are checked if your name is crossed of. Expect a fine if you're not crossed off. When in the voting boot, you do you, don't vote or draw a picture for what it's worth. All those blanco or illigimate votes are counted as blanco. These blanco votes are assigned to the majority afterwards. So even if you don't vote, you're saying that you agree with the majority of voters. This gives a very good intent to actually vote, a drawback is that you often get some protest votes on the extreme parties. Some parties want to abolish this system because they think they can gain in the final results. They're assholes imo, this system works great and no one can't say their voice wasn't heard afterwards. Source: am Belgian Edit: got corrected and they are right: blanco votes are counted, but not assigned to any party.
Are there any statistics regarding what percentage of people are actually fined for not showing up? I read in a belgian newspaper that since 2007, there was barely anyone fined.
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Lose your voting right? Ok everything else makes sense, but i think to take the voting right is to much. That is smth that should never be taken
I think that if I was a person who hasn't voted for 15 years, I'd be happy to have my voting right revoked instead of getting another fine. I'd be unlikely to have voted anyways if I did keep my voting right. (Note: This is just a hypothetical, I am not such a person, I vote every time)
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I still see the problem. It also makes no sense to punish smbd with the thibg he Anyway did. And it is completely undemocratic. You should try to bring even such people people back to take part and not to take a fundamental right from them
So the government punishes you for not doing something by taking that ability away? What? If you don't pay taxes, you'll lose your right to pay taxes
Sick people, elderly and those who are working do not need to show up.
Luxembourg too. Should be everywhere. Those numbers are shameful.
I dont think so. If people who dont care about voting often do not know and care about politics. It is better to keep them away from the ballot.
You can always vote blank or spoil the ballot paper if you don't know who to vote for.
which in most European states amounts to absolutely nothing.
As a young guy from Belgium I also thought that but then I voted for the first time and was proven wrong when I realized that everyone around me started to care about politics at the same time, and it actually helps society make better and more educated decisions. Sincerely, you are wrong.
There is also an argument to be made about how mandating to show up at the voting booth makes it more likely for vulnerable subgroups of the population to be better repredented in the voting. For example people that have a hard time making ends meet might otherwise decide not to vote because they prioritize work, but you do need them to be properly represented in parliament.
Thank you! Please keep on believing, cause the day too many of us stop believing in democracy, only the madmen go to the polls. And madmen elect dictators.
Agree, but then they shouldn't complain about it.
It's not. it's mandatory to show up at the votingbooth. Many people vote cause you're their anyway so why not vote then. but if you want you can leave your ballot completely empty.
Yeah, but that still counts as voting in zhe sense of viter turnout
Also, we didn't vote for Europe only, there were this Sunday other elections as well.
Croatians on Dust 2 planting the bomb.
We spent all of our energy voting in the parliamentary elections last month.
And morale is pretty low because of the result of those elections
Honestly, a big part of me knew that would be the result, the moment we found out how many seats hdz and dp had. But watching most running from responsibility was at least entertaining, and this whole situation with Bartulica running off to Bruxelles with his mandate and ignoring the members of his party for two days is a cherry on top.
How did it go?
Terrible, as expected
We gave a third mandate in a row to a party that's actually been convicted for corruption, our overlord HDZ. Yes, the whole party. Oh, and did I mention that they've managed to steal 14 million euros, just during the last mandate, and just through one public company? And then they entered the coalition with the hard right party... that's mainly made from ex HDZ members that had been thrown out when current prime minister Plenković took over the party, since they were too far from the centre for his tastes. Significant percentage of them was also too dumb too hide their own theft and corruption. And yes, two of their 14 parliamentary members were already caught by the media during this month. One for buying a diploma, the other for trying to hide his property. We sent the other one to the eu parliament - that's the guy in the ferrari. And he was driven by a guy convicted for tryign to murder someone.
>Oh, and did I mention that they've managed to steal 14 million euros, just during the last mandate, and just through one public company? Has to be higher. Just the INA affair was 1 billion Kuna, or 132 million euros. And then there's the whole gas for a cent thing after that. When you write it all out like that, it really is a lot worse than getting the corruption slowly trickling in, one affair at a time.
That's gas for a cent. I actually forgot about ina thing, if you can believe it. That's how much they steal from us, and how often.
14 million? Those are rookie numbers, our overlords would consider that barely worth to steal anymore. Welcome to FIDESZ, and just in general most right aligned parties.
I mean, they also got out of INA (which you guys stole) 132 million euros during this or the last year. 14 million is just the last affair I've remembered.
All affairs together it's in the billions iirc
lmao
Noone cares who goes to bruxelles to get that fat euro paycheck for doing nothing.
I know it was a third election in less than a year, but seeing Poland's turnout be this low feels a bit sad.
That's not surprising. Euroelection always get lower turnout. It's not a Polish-specific problem as this map showcases too
The german numbers also just started rising last elections. Before that, it was between 40 and 50% as well. But the last two elections got a little more attention.
Euroelections were always like that here. I guess people don't perceive them as that much important, since decisions are made far away and we are sending delegation of 50 people to 700 sits EU parliament.
But I'm really happy with your results. A I understand the new government that has to do a lot of work on the instututions and reform in general. And given that the EU elections are often used to express discontent with the governing party it's huge they came in first. So at least that's my take form outside. What do you think?
21.34% just means that my vote has more meaning 🙂 There is always a positive side, the less people vote the more impact your vote has.
Yeah, it's a thing we've been starting to learn over here too
Yes, right wing extremists love this, too, since their followers would never skip a vote
Is there any proof for this? I have read that my entire life, never with a source.
Every election statistic is proof: extreme right parties lose significantly fewer voters to non-voters than moderate parties.
This is also true for the left extreme. Extremists are generally more into politics than moderates since they see the issue as more urgent and therefore requiring more extreme solutions, so when turnouts are low the extremists on both the left and the right are more likely to vote tend to be over-represented. This obviously doesn't mean that both extremes will get the same amount of votes, one extreme can be more popular regardless of turnout, just that the parties on either extreme will get a higher percentage of the vote than they would have if the turnout was larger.
EDIT: [This research article](https://doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2020.1774507) is directly about compulsory voting and right-wing populism. Its abstract: > When all citizens vote, the influence of radical parties decreases. Despite this being a central justification for compulsory voting in the past, it has been absent from contemporary debates. I examine the normative and empirical premises of the ‘moderation thesis’ in relation to radical right-wing populist parties today and suggest that, under certain conditions, compulsory voting can limit these parties’ appeal. First, it replaces the excessive mobilisation of discontented voters with a more universal mobilisation. Second, it addresses the problem of underrepresentation offering a more pluralist type of representation than the populist one. And third, it reverses socioeconomic inequalities that drive support for populism through the egalitarian effects that compulsory voting has on policymaking. My central thesis is this: because compulsory voting embodies inclusivist, pluralist and egalitarian values, it addresses some of the grievances that drive support for right-wing populist parties without carrying the same normative costs as populism. I'll leave the original comment below, since it's probably still interesting :) --- I also was curious - apparently there is a grain of truth to this, though the survey paper I quote suggests there is an effect, but it is very small - and in particular much smaller than we might imagine based on the fact that young, poor, and working-class voters are significantly less likely to vote when voting is not compulsory. The relevant paragraphs I found are on page 12: > Scholars who have studied this question have mostly – but not exclusively – focused on > analyzing whether the Democratic party in the US, and left-wing parties in a European > context, suffer from low turnout rates (Brunell and DiNardo 2004; Martinez and Gill 2005; > Pacek and Radcliff 1995; Lutz 2007). **The assumption of this stream of research is that left- > of-center parties will better represent the interests of the working class, the poor, and the > lower educated. If such parties indeed fare less well when turnout is low, the implication > is that unequal participation also entails unequal representation in Parliament.** > > **A number of studies find evidence that is in line with this basic assumption.** Analyses > that simulate the election outcome under full turnout in the United States, for example, > indicate that Democrats would do better under high turnout. This effect, however, seems > quite variable (Brunell and DiNardo 2004; Martinez and Gill 2005), is generally small > (Highton and Wolfinger 2001) and it rarely changes the outcome of an election (Citrin et > al. 2003). **Others have shown that left-of-center parties would benefit, or have benefited, > from high turnout in countries in Europe** (Kohler 2011; Pacek and Radcliff 1995). > Furthermore, a simulation based on survey data in Australia – where voting is > compulsory – suggest that the decline in turnout that would follow from abolishing > compulsory voting would lead the left-wing party Labour to lose votes (Mackerras and > McAllister 1999). Focusing on Australia as well but exploiting variation in the > introduction of compulsory voting between states, Fowler (2013) also finds that Labour > benefits from higher turnout under compulsory voting. > > **Even though the poor and the lower educated are less likely to turn out to vote – in > particular in low turnout elections, it seems as if left-of-center parties are not doing worse > when turnout is low.** Why is the effect so small? Scholars have pointed to two > explanations, that can be complementary. First, it has been argued that the absence of a > clear partisan effect of low turnout is a consequence of the fact that the preferences and > opinions of abstainers are not that different from those of voters. There is no clear > indication, therefore, that abstainers prefer the more progressive policies that left-of- > center parties stand for (Highton and Wolfinger 2001; Rubenson et al. 2007; van der Eijk > and van Egmond 2007). Second, contextual factors – and electoral rules in particular – > have an impact on the size of partisan effects. According to Ferwerda (2014), in order for > a decline in turnout to translate into ‘a meaningful loss in party vote share, there must > simultaneously be a large decline in turnout between elections as well as a large skew in > preferences between the voting and non-voting population’. Ferwerda (2014) argues that > the combination of both is very rare. A first reason is that declines in turnout are generally > fairly modest. Secondly, a large skew in party preferences is unlikely when there are > multiple parties, which holds especially in fragmented party systems. As a result, a > decline in turnout levels only rarely alters the outcome of an election. Blais, André, Ruth Dassonneville, and Filip Kostelka, 'Political Equality and Turnout', 2020, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198825081.013.20. PDF available [here](https://repository.essex.ac.uk/28811/4/Political%20equality%20and%20turnout_240720.pdf ).
Well my vote had no impact. Or maybe it did, D'Hont probably assigned it to HDZ
This is freaking disgrace.
We broke a record in Slovenia, it's never been this high for EU elections.
We broke a record in Italy too, it's never been that low for EU elections.
Same in Czechia
Same in Slovakia
Its one of the highest in recent history not counting the 2022 presidential elections. Feels weird seeing it as a bad result, though it objectively is.
Apathy wins!
Seats in the European Parliament should be divided between countries based on number of votes cast instead of total population. Turnout would be through the roof.
No it wouldnt lol, you think people who didnt vote would give a fuck then?
I suspect many nations would suddenly have mandatory voting in place
r/PORTUGALCYKABLYAT
As is tradition!
I understand Croatia but what's with the baltics low turnout?
As a Lithuanian it's a general lack of advertising and information. Nobody was hyped for it. It was hard to research the candidates. The presidential voting turnout was ~50% for the 2nd poll, and 60% in the 1st one.
It was a pretty big thing in the german media = 65% voting.
Estonians really have no excuse, we can vote online. But since we elect only 7 MEPs, many people think there's no point in participating in the elections.
That's the wrong way to think about it. An Estonian vote is in fact much more meaningful than a German vote. Germany as 1 seat for ~645.000 eligible voters, Estonia has 1 seat for ~140.000 eligible voters.
I know, I'm in the 37.6%, but it's hard to get people to care.
I think in smaller countries there is a sense that they are simply just along for the ride anyway and all you can really do, is brace for impact and try to survive as best as you can, when larger countries go over your head.
Even if 90% voted would still be 7 MEPs.
Smaller countries perceive the EU governance to be distant and people feel like they have no say in the matters of the EU anyway.
Croatia first! From the back.
You took our spot. 🤝
Does this mean we will shoot our prime minister next?
Too drastic. How about trying to beat our record low turnout from 2014, at just 13%?
Nah, fuck that. Let's stick to sex and violence.
🗿
Is that Fico's statue?
Damn, that's the last thing we would want. A statue dedicated to him.
Let me introduce you to numerous statues of our first president: [https://www.reddit.com/r/croatia/comments/18gsmm6/ljepota\_je\_u\_o%C4%8Dima\_pasivnog\_promatra%C4%8Da/](https://www.reddit.com/r/croatia/comments/18gsmm6/ljepota_je_u_o%C4%8Dima_pasivnog_promatra%C4%8Da/) Be optimistic, at least statue will be so bad that it will become grotesquely funny.
Yeah he looks like he's taking a shit.
Honestly for how little the general public seems to know / care about the inner workings of the EU, the voting turnout isn't as bad as I would expect.
The 59% in hungary on an eu election is really great. Almost that many people voted in the general elections in 2022
I agree, it’s completely underappreciated and they should be super proud of themselves
People in red countries still don't understand that they can contribute to EU by sending correct representatives. They just see the decisions of EU as an order from above and take it for granted.
Shitting on the EU but not actually doing anything that would change the EU is more fun /s
Why do you think the countries in red shit on EU? I know we in Croatia don't. It's more of not having anyone to vote for, has nothing to do with EU per se
They don't shit on the EU, they just don't understand it. It's something that happens somewhere else. Some of these are post-communist countries. The lower educated working class people, born somewhere around 1950-1970 spent their best years in a failing Soviet dictatorship, all they know is that whatever happens, they have to survive somehow and they don't trust anyone or anything. The Soviet Union collapsed when they were roughly 30-somethings and the change has simply been too fast for them to adapt.
The parliament is the weakest of the EU’s institutions. The strongest representative voters send are in the EU Council.
In my opinion the eu parliament is probably the most important institution. As it decides who is going to be the defacto leader of the eu. Additionally they also discuss about new laws.
It's not really a matter of opinion. The parliament can't introduce legislation, the other bodies can. It's weaker, full stop.
It doesn't matter who's the face of the parliament. The only institution that can propose laws is the Commission. The parliament can discuss these laws, but even then, these laws then have to be approved by the council of ministers.
Nah man... We just think there is no lesser evil
Eh, what are 13 members (already split by party lines) in a 700 member body going to do? The German extra-parliamentary parties nearly have as much seats as my entire country.
I really don't understand this sentiment. I can turn this around and say that your Croatian vote has at least twice as much influence as my German vote, cause 96 seat for 84m people is less than 12 for 3.5m. Sure, in an election with 450m inhabitants your individual vote is always gonna be a tiny influence.
In Ireland turnout was over 50% (still to low). The graphic is showing local election turnout in Ireland which was another election on the same day.
Why is Croatia so low?
Massive disapointed and the lack of motivation caused by results of last elections, which happened 2 months ago. Although we usually dont have high turnout for EU elections, but at least it was 30% last EU elections
Exactly
Is the result of the last elections bad? Genuinely asking.
TLDR: The ruling party, HDZ, who are the successors of the Croatian communist party and control all the country's institutions (they have many times more members than all the other parties combined and you need to be a member or have a connection to get a lot of public sector jobs) reunited with their far-right offshoot because they couldn't form the government on their own even though the system is rigged in their favor. Now our democracy will continue to deteriorate as it did before (laws destroying the free press, more HDZ shills in the courts and basically everywhere) but we also get to listen to some weird paranoia about Serbs on a daily basis and a bunch of other pretty stupid stuff.
Ouch, that’s horrible. I always thought we had it awful over here and that you were the ones with normal politicians and parties.
SDP is the successor of the croatian communist party. HDZ just had a lot of communists when it was formed. Then again, if you were politically active before the croatian independence, it was hard not to be a communist since the communists party was the only legal party.
The corrupt government, won again, partly by giving everybody in public sector 200-600 eur NET pay increase to motivate them to vote for the same. We had the chance but In the end the opposition did some bad moves like not going together, and we lost. Most of us lost a lot of motivation for anything politics related.
We are still depressed from the parliamentary election results.
We don't have high turnouts in any election. It's difficult to pinpoint why, but someone already mentioned the political illiteracy. For example, it's socially acceptable and even favored when one has 0 knowledge about politics or politicians, due to it being considered a dirty profession. Also there is a lack of alternative ways to participate, such as through postal voting.
No one really cares about EU elections + we had parliamentary elections earlier this year and the campaign for those ate up people's nerves. And no one cares about EU elections because it's understood that we don't really have a say in it on this level, which is ultimately true.
Everything below 70% is not good and it just means that the parties who get all their supporters to vote get better results Yet I also have to say that some people have a good excuse, like there were massive floodings in parts of Austria and those towns/villages had no real chance to vote PS: Today also the dead body of a 77 year old was found who went missing on Sunday, as he drove into town to vote despite the floodings but never made it back home. Some people literally risk their lives to vote while others just don't care (and complain)
Fuck... rest in peace.
Depressing lol
Low turnout benefits extremists
Wtf guys?
And I thought our numbers where low. Jesus...
Imagine complaining nonstop about the EU's decisions, and then not even showing up to the elections.
It's only a matter of time before a politician starts preaching that democracy is not the political system that people want any more. And these numbers seem to agree.
A leader of Germany‘s AfD literally quit because he said, and I quote, that the party no longer followed „the liberal democratic basic order“.
Finland at 40% and Denmark at 58% being the same colour doesn't make any sense, those are very different levels of participation
Note 89.82% of Belgians voted. I lived in Brussels in the early 70’s and found out it is a civic duty to vote and you are fined if you do not vote. “The absentees break the law and risk a fine of 40 to 80 euros. Repeat offenders even risk a fine of up to 200 euros. People who consistently (four times in 15 years) refuse to vote, will be punished with a ban on voting.”
Let me get this straight, if you don’t vote, you get banned from voting as a punishment?
sounds great
Wow that's fucking horrendous
I know it's still low, but Romania just a little over 50%!!! I'm a little happy that a lot more people decided to vote, which is not that popular here :[
Germans had some of the highest turnout just to vote for fucking CDU and AfD 💀💀💀
We are in the orange only because a lot of non-voters voted a clickbait youtuber this year for shits and giggles His name is Fidias
I would make fun of you, but we've been voting for the third time for "Die PARTEI", which translates to "The Party", but is actually an acronym for "Party for Work, Rule of Law, Animal Rights, Advancement of the Elite and Grassroots Democracy\* Initiative". It's a spin-off of a satirical magazine. They've used the last two times they've been elected to make a lot of depressing content about the state of the european union. \*) "Grassroots Democracy" is loosely translated
I wonder how a higher turnout may have influenced the result.
My mom said she has never voted in an EU election. She asked how often they were. I said its every 5 years. She was like "oh really". People have zero clue and dont care.
Oh man, I love color grading **with** actual numbers. so we won't pretend that f.e. Poland (40%) and Hungary (59%) were in the same bag.
those 30 something percent in Slovakia are actually really impressive for EU elections, i think it's even highest voting turn out on in EU elections here but don't quote me on that
In Belgium it is Mandatory voting, not an option.
democracy is when 50% of the voters dont give a fuck anymore about politics
Apathy ftw
Why are Baltic states so low?
Funnily enough it's the anti-EU voters who seem to vote the most haha
Is there a picture with a comparison to Eurovision 2024? 😅
In Belgium we also had federal and regional elections ln the say day and you HAVE to vote by law
In some EU countries voting is mandatory, like Belgium for example, hence the high turnout rate there.
ironic how people like to complain about politics, wages, standards of living etc. but thet can't even make 1 hour of their time to go and vote. I know people who went to barbeque the same day and couldn't give a shit about the voting. We blame the governments but we deserve them.
Colors are so dumb. When showing one factor, there should be just different shades of one color.
Wait wtf. You can vote from your phone in Estonia, why is their turnout so bad?
I thought online-voting in Estonia was a revolutionary development that would ensure 100% voter turnout at all times. What happened there?
Now Estonia suprice me as it is a nation where you can vote digitally, so the only thing stopping you would be apathy.
And apathy is something we in Estonia are truly known for, unfortunately. :/
In Finland it should show 42,4%
40,4 % is the turnout out of all who had the right to vote, including those who live abroad. 42,4 % is the domestic turnout. https://tulospalvelu.vaalit.fi/EPV-2024/fi/aanestys1.html
People have issue X Left: i will solve issue Y Right: i will solve issue Z Centro: i will join the coalition with whoever has most votes Nobody solve issue X, naive people ":0 why Is there such a low turnout?"
Smaller countries have no motivation to vote, low representation in parliament and its always the same countries ahead of the parliament groups.
r/portugalcykablyat
od birača nema jebača
So one person's vote in Croatia is worth like 4x that of one vote in Belgium?
So Sweden went from 55% in 2019 to 51.7%. That did surprise me at first because this election did seem to galvanize alot of people. Now i kinda wanna know the demographics for the vote and see who chose to abstain.
I wonder what could be causing this. Maybe people don’t want parlamentarism and democracy that never get anything done. The greater scheme of things has to change.
Why is the turnout so low in the Baltic countries?
C’mon guys! If we keep it like this it’s obvious we will be stuck with stupid people in parliament!
There was an election?
Germany also had local elections in half of the states on the same date which might be the rason for turnout to be relatively high
Looks like EU will have a problems in near future
As a Turk I must say those are rookie numbers
It turns out you can get elected into the Bulgarian parliament with 7000 votes. A fringe party managed to get in with less than 80 000 votes. Maybe I should consider a career change. Broadcast populist bullshit on social media and then hope that 10% of those go and vote for you.
r/PORTUGALCYKABLYAT
This just means no democracy is representative and our government is illegitimate. (besides the ones in green)
Hungary is 3rd lol
This tells you something is wrong about our democracy. It's not that a majority of people are idiots, they feel like voting doesn't change anything.
Third highest in partaking, far right still second place. Great.
And that although germany has one of the highest eligible voters per seat. * Italy: 644,736 eligible voters per seat * Germany: 637,500 eligible voters per seat * Spain: 627,118 eligible voters per seat * France: 594,937 eligible voters per seat * Poland: 576,923 eligible voters per seat * Romania: 572,727 eligible voters per seat * Greece: 471,429 eligible voters per seat * Portugal: 490,476 eligible voters per seat * Belgium: 390,476 eligible voters per seat * Hungary: 380,952 eligible voters per seat * Czech Republic: 400,000 eligible voters per seat * Netherlands: 448,276 eligible voters per seat * Austria: 336,842 eligible voters per seat * Finland: 321,429 eligible voters per seat * Slovakia: 321,429 eligible voters per seat * Croatia: 308,333 eligible voters per seat * Denmark: 307,143 eligible voters per seat * Sweden: 347,619 eligible voters per seat * Bulgaria: 370,588 eligible voters per seat * Ireland: 253,846 eligible voters per seat * Lithuania: 227,273 eligible voters per seat * Slovenia: 212,500 eligible voters per seat * Latvia: 187,500 eligible voters per seat * Malta: 66,667 eligible voters per seat * Cyprus: 100,000 eligible voters per seat * Estonia: 128,571 eligible voters per seat * Luxembourg: 50,000 eligible voters per seat
Tournout would have been much lower in Romania, however the EP elections were merged with the local ones, so you got a lot of rural voters who normally don’t give a shit about the EP.
I thought you folks treated voting very seriously? This is not the turnout reddit tells me it would be.