2024 European Elections: Hungary, Cyprus and Slovenia among the countries with the largest increase in turnout

Along with Hungary and Cyprus, Slovenia is among the top three countries with the largest increase in turnout in the last Elections for the European Parliament compared to 2019. 

“In the case of this year’s elections, the emphasis is on the criticality of the elections, on deciding important things,” commented Dr Alenka Krašovec from the Faculty of Social Sciences for our first article on the European elections last year, just before the elections. 

In the long term, turnout is affected by a variety of factors, both socio-economic and systemic, such as the electoral system particulars, as well as contextual factors. 

Rapid changes in turnout, with the exception of crisis situations, are usually not related to socio-economic factors, in case of which changes tend to be slow, but may be related to systemic factors, such as changes in the electoral system, or to contextual factors – for example, the perception that a particular election represents a critical, tipping point. Simultaneity of voting is also an important contextual factor. 

Let us first look at the contextual factors in the case of Cyprus, where turnout in the European elections increased by 13.87 percentage points compared to 2019. 

In Cyprus, local elections were held at the same time as the European elections. “In Cyprus, local elections are very personal. Given the small electorate and the large number of seats and candidates, if we exaggerate a bit, practically every family has a relative among the candidates to vote for,” explained Dr Yiannos Katsourides, Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Nicosia in Cyprus.  

Another contextual factor could be the participation of Fidias Panayiotou, a popular YouTube content creator, as an independent candidate for the European Parliament. According to data provided to us by the EP Office in Cyprus, Panayiotou received the third highest support, with 19.4 percent of all votes cast. “Fidias certainly managed to mobilise people who otherwise would not have voted. Taking both factors into account is probably the best answer to why there was an increase in voter turnout,” Dr Katsourides said.

He added that many expected the Turkish Cypriot votes to increase voter turnout, but this did not happen as very few Turkish Cypriots voted. 

The trend in participation in European elections remain positive – but not in all countries

Since the first direct elections to the European Parliament in 1979, the proportion of eligible voters who have taken part in European elections has been falling. We analysed the various reasons that contributed to this in our first article on the European elections. 

For the 2019 elections, the trend turned positive. A higher proportion of voters participated in the 2019 European elections than in 2014, by 8.05 percentage points. The trend remains positive for last year’s elections, but the turnout rate increased by only 0.08 percentage points.

However, the trend was not positive in all EU Member States. In some countries, the proportion of eligible voters who did not participate in the elections has increased even further – for example, in Croatia. 

In specialized terminology, a voter can be either a person who has the right to vote in an election or a person who actually votes. In this article, we will use the term ‘voter’ to refer to eligible voters who can choose whether or not to participate in an election.

Pod Črto followed up its analysis by collecting additional data, focusing in particular on systemic and contextual factors that influence voter turnout.

The largest share of voters abstained from voting in Croatia

When it comes to non-participation in the 2019 European Parliament elections, Slovakia topped the list with 77 percent of eligible voters not participating, followed by Czechia, Slovenia, Croatia, and Portugal in that order.

In the last European elections in 2024, Croatia ranked first in terms of non-participation, with almost 80 percent of eligible voters not voting, followed by Lithuania, Bulgaria, Latvia and Slovakia.

Just a few weeks before the European elections, Croatia held parliamentary elections on 17 April. Furthermore, in March, Croatian President, Zoran Milanović, announced his candidacy for the presidential elections due to be held at the end of last year and the beginning of this year. According to the Croatian State Electoral Commission, elections to neighbourhood councils were also held in some cities and municipalities on 9 June.

Dr Dario Čepo, Professor of Sociology and Political Science at the University of Zagreb, explained that the low voter turnout in Croatia was the result of several factors. According to him, these include voter overload with multiple elections in 2024, low levels of trust in political actors and especially parties, the second-rate nature of European elections, which voters cannot link to direct benefits in their lives, and a weak opposition that failed to capitalise on the phenomenon that European elections are often a referendum on the government or the ruling party.

“In my opinion, the overload is one of the key factors, in addition to the general disinterest of Croatian voters in participating in political processes, due to the high level of mistrust and the lack of enthusiasm for EU membership among the citizens, which is evident from the referendum on Croatia’s accession to the EU,” Dr Čepo said.

In the 2019 European elections, Slovenia ranked among the top five countries with the highest proportion of non-voters. In the last European elections in 2024, turnout in Slovenia increased, but still almost 60 percent of eligible voters did not participate in the elections. 

As was explained in our first article, low voter turnout means that the lives of the majority of a country’s population and, in the case of European Parliament elections, the lives of people in other European countries, are affected by the decisions of a small minority of the population.

If the number of voters from certain social groups or regions is particularly low, this also means that there is an unequal representation in important social and political decisions. On the other hand, it raises question about the legitimacy of those in power, which is why countries are looking at systemic measures to increase participation in elections – one such measure is compulsory voting.

Belgium, Luxembourg and Malta remain the top three countries with the highest proportion of voters taking part in the European Parliament elections in 2024, as they were in 2019. 

The fact that in Belgium and Luxembourg only just over 10 and 18 percent of voters, respectively, did not turn up is not surprising, given that in both countries participation in elections is compulsory.

As mentioned in our previous article, we contacted the Belgian EP office about compulsory voting.

We were told that the penalty for an absence without justification is firstly financial, between EUR 40 and EUR 80 for a first absence and between EUR 80 and EUR 200 for a second absence. If a voter fails to vote four or more times in a fifteen-year period without a valid reason, they will be removed from the electoral register for ten years. During this period, they cannot be appointed to public office or receive honours.

The Luxembourg EP office also confirmed that participation in elections is compulsory in Luxembourg, and that, according to their law, absenteeism without a valid reason can also be punished by a fine.

Changes in systemic factors in the 2024 European elections

Among the systemic factors, we focused on the particulars of the electoral system, which includes preferential voting, compulsory voting and the age limit for participation in elections. 

In Belgium and Germany, the voting age had changed: in the 2019 European elections, the age limit for voting was still 18, but in the 2024 elections it was lowered to 16.

Between 2019 and 2024, the legislation had also changed in Cyprus, where compulsory participation in elections had been abolished. 

Participation in elections in Cyprus was officially compulsory until 2019, but the law on compulsory voting had been practically inactive since 2004, when the country became a member of the European Union, Dr Katsourides explained. Penalties for abstention were not enforced, so the level of non-participation was higher with each election, he added.

Evolution of turnout: largest increase in Hungary, largest decrease in Lithuania

We looked at the increase in voter turnout in Cyprus at the beginning of this article, where we highlighted two factors – the high level of support for a popular YouTube content creator (who came third with 19.4 percent) and the fact that local elections were held on the same day, which happened for the first time in the history of the European elections, according to the EP Office in Cyprus. 

The Hungarian Electoral Commission told us that they also held local elections and elections for minority representatives on the same day, which must have contributed to the increase in turnout.  

“Organising and holding several elections at the same time, for example several different elections or elections and referendums, often leads to greater voter mobilisation, as some decisions to be made by voters on the same day may mobilise certain segments of the voting population, while other decisions may mobilise other segments of the electorate. Therefore, it is not unexpected that when there are several decisions to be made on the same day, this also affects voter turnout,” explained Dr Alenka Krašovec from the Faculty of Social Sciences in Ljubljana.  

Part of the explanation for the increased turnout in the 2024 European elections in Slovenia could therefore be linked to the simultaneous holding of referendums. “It is true that, with a few exceptions, participation in referendums in Slovenia is relatively low, but the subject matter of referendums and the related involvement of political parties or other actors in mobilising voters is always important. Thus, it could be argued that the involvement of parties or other actors in the so-called euthanasia referendum in particular mobilised important segments of the voters. This was probably also reflected in the significantly higher voter turnout at the European elections held on the same day,” Dr Krašovec added.

However, having to decide on several things in a short period of time can also have a negative impact on voter turnout. 

“Asking voters to make multiple decisions on different days or months within short periods of time leads to voters being overloaded with decisions in a representative democracy. So, both contexts – multiple decisions at the same time or multiple decisions at short intervals over the course of a year – can be important contextual factors for voter turnout,” Dr Krašovec explained.

An example of this in the latest elections is the case of Lithuania, where turnout in 2024 was 24.51 percentage points lower than in the 2019 European elections. As the EP office explained to us, there was probably voter overload in Lithuania, as they had three different elections in six weeks: the first round of the presidential election on 12 May, followed by the second round of the presidential election on 26 May, and then the European elections on 9 June, with parliamentary elections to follow in the autumn. 

“When explaining voter turnout, we always need to take into account many different factors, and in particular, we need to take a long-term perspective when explaining it,” Dr. Krašovec warned. 

In this article, we have deliberately focused on systemic factors with changes in the organisation of the electoral system, as well as contextual factors for which we were able to collect and analyse data. More detailed analyses, taking into account additional factors and a longer-term perspective, will only be possible after a longer period of time.

Contributors on the topic of electoral (non)participation:

Project manager and editor-in-chief: Taja Topolovec

Journalistic work: Nina Hlebec, Taja Topolovec, Urban Tarman

Data collection: Nina Hlebec, Hana Radilovič

Article text: Taja Topolovec

Visualisation and design: Una Rebić, Metod Blejec

Photographs: Metod Blejec

Data verification: Nina Hlebec, Ana Gabrovec, Taja Topolovec, Klara Škrinjar

Proofreading: Tjaša Mislej (article text), Nina Hlebec (infographics)

Data on voter turnout in the European elections up to and including 2019 was collected by Pod črto under the leadership of Divergente as part of the European Data Journalism Network (EDJNet) project. The following were involved in the data collection: Divergente (Portugal), Are We Europe (Belgium), Átlátszó (Hungary), Delfi Meedia (Estonia and Lithuania), Dataninja (Italy), Denník N (Slovakia), Deutsche Welle (Germany), DIN MIA’CET-Iscte (Portugal), El Confidencial (Spain), EUrologus (Hungary), II Sole 24 Ore (Italy), iMEdD (Greece), NARA (Lithuania), Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa (Italy), PressOne (Romania), Rue89 Strasbourg (France), Voxeurop (Belgium) and Pod Črto (Slovenia). Hana Radilović also helped to collect voter turnout data up to and including 2019 for Pod Črto.

Original source: https://podcrto.si/evropske-volitve-2024-slovenija-med-drzavami-z-najvecjo-spremembo-v-povecanju-deleza-volilne-udelezbe/