Sugarcoated turnout numbers
When it comes to election tournout numbers, all European countries fiddle the figures as much as they can. In doing so, they pretend a level of legitimacy of the voting system that, in fact, does no longer exist as implied.
One tremendous problem is the disregard of blank votes—also known as white votes, a form of protest against the available selection of choices or candidates—which most countries do not count as valid and therefore turn into void votes, much rather than to accept them as a legitimate expression of disagreement with and disapproval of the presented options.
Another major issue relates to the unbelievably high numbers of citizens and residents that are systematically excluded and denied the right to vote – in many European countries between a quarter and a third of the population.
Photo by tiffa130 | flickr
Take the case of the recent elections to the Parliament of the European Union, often referred to as the European election. Of the roughly 500 million people living in the European Union, approximately 375 million were eligible to vote – around 75 % of the Union’s population had the right to vote, and the remaining quarter was excluded from the start.
Of these 375 million eligible voters, less than half actually went to the polls – only 43 % voted.
All in all, 338 million people living in the European Union did not—or could not—make their voice heard in these elections. That’s a whopping percentage of 67.6 % – more than two thirds of the people living in the EU.
In other words: less than a third of the people living in the Union have determined the power constellations in which the political parties and their personell are now allowed to continue taking decisions that effect all the 500 million Europeans.
And yet: nonvoting is not a problem of democracy at large; it is a problem of political parties. Fiddling with the numbers, on the other hand—as currently practised by those very same political parties—that is a problem of democracy.