For two days we have been walking around in the huge metropolis Berlin and talking to voters and nonvoters. Many answers were very general and expectably, but we also met living stereotypes, freaks and surprises – one of these we would like to present to you more in detail. Continue reading…
By Santi, Claire and Bintou
They say that voting is a right and a duty in a democratic state. However, not all citizens go and vote in France, for example some young people do not vote… Who are they? Continue reading…
There is not one simple, straightforward reason why people do or do not vote. There are many motives—personal, social, institutional—for particular patterns of participation. A widespread approach aiming for a better understanding of nonvoters is to categorise them by creating typologies.
Thomas Kleinhenz—in his book “Reasons for the decline of turnout”—offers one of the most detailed typologies of nonvoters, taking into account their socio-economic status, political interests, party identifications, values and participation behaviours.
By Joanna Socha
Had I ever thought about non-voters before? Probably not. Why? Because why in the world should I focus on people, who consider (or don’t) voting important? Does anybody really care about them? No way – I thought before. But now I know that before I didn’t know what I had been talking about. Continue reading…
As Prof. Dieter Roth from University Heidelberg said: equality, freedom and participation are the elements of democracy, with an emphasis on the last one. And participation is the biggest problem. Why? Continue reading…
A few weeks ago elections for the European Parliament (EP) took place – the turnout was the lowest ever. Therefore we joined a seminar about voting and nonvoting. We just wanted to find out why most young people did not vote and what the media do to encourage people to go and vote. Continue reading…
Dieter Roth—Professor at Heidelberg University and co-founder of one of the leading political polling groups of Germany—noted during his intervention at the Choiceless Project Seminar how astonishing it really is that currently old people can and do decide almost everything, simply because many young people don’t vote or participate.
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.
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