„No, we didn’t vote in the last election. We are Jehovah’s witnesses and Jesus Christ is our government!” say the two women friendly and go on eating their Chinese food under a tree. Even after two days of surveys and interviews, including answers like “I didn’t vote because I lost my polling card” and “Voting is for old people!” this sentence still is surprising.

Everybody knows something about Jehovah’s witnesses. Maybe thanks to the media, maybe thanks to smattering, or thanks to their own magazines “Awake” and “Watchtower”.

You know, they refuse blood transfusion, they calculate the end of the world twice a year and they walk from door to door, ringing doorbells and trying to sell their newspapers. Only few people know that they refuse to celebrate heathen feasts, including Carnival and even their own birthdays.

But the small sentence “Jesus Christ is our government” is something new. Because many Jehovah’s witnesses actually don’t take part in elections or any other kind of political activities. The reason is, they think any governmental institutions are brooked and authorized by God, so they accept the force of the state and respect laws and governmental allowance, but every time the state’s expectations are not comparable with their understating of the bible, it gets complicated. They refuse military service and any other things that might be adoration for the Country like singing the national anthem.

Since the late 90ies Jehovah’s witnesses are officially “allowed” to go and vote, an article from “Watchtower” says:

„Being instructed by the Bible, every witness decides himself on the basis of his conscience and understanding of his responsibility towards God and the State if he wants to go and give his vote to any candidate on the list or not.“

What is also interesting is that other religious communities, sects and associations either vote for extremist splinter parties or don’t take part in elections to protest. The only ones who refuse voting because they regard Jesus Christ as the Government are the witnesses.

We have heard of many reasons why people vote and why not. But we still find it irritating that, in the open-minded EU, who is always trying her best at separating church and politics, religion is a reason not to go and vote.

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?

Those who do not trust politicians and politics in general, those who do not receive enough information. But there are also persons who use it as a way to protest, to say that something is going wrong in society and that they do not want to participate in this system.

Which is quite surprising is that no one cares about nonvoters; we only have some statistics and critics after the elections but apart from that… NOTHING! As a consequence, we do not know who nonvoters are, why they do not vote and if they could be potential voters if something changed in politics.

Nonetheless, some politicians try to attract their attention using media and creating political blogs on the Internet.

The French are in general more interested in presidential elections, maybe because they are more informed. Since 2002 we have noticed a radical change in behaviour as more people have been trying to play a part in political life.

Voting or nonvoting is a personal choice, but we have to be aware that it will have an impact on our lives.

Interview von Michael Metzger mit Kristin Dethloff und Anna Siitam im politikorange-Themenmagazin zur Bundestagswahl 2009.

Interview: Die Stimme der Stimmlosen | Foto von Jonas Fischer

Der Titel eures Projektes ist „Choiceless – voiceless“. Haben Nichtwähler keine Stimme?

Kristin: Keine gemeinsame jedenfalls. In der gesellschaftlichen Wahrnehmung werden Nichtwähler dämonisiert. Angeblich sind sie politisch desinteressiert, ihnen ist alles egal, sie gefährden die Demokratie. Dabei sind Nichtwähler keineswegs alle gleich: Es gibt zahlreiche unterschiedliche Gründe, seine Stimme bei einer Wahl zu verweigern.

Nämlich?

Kristin: Natürlich gibt es da die politisch uninteressierten Nichtwähler, in deren Leben es keine große Rolle spielt, wer sie regiert. Aber dann sind da auch die Nichtwähler, die einfach nicht verstehen, wie eine Wahl funktioniert. Denen sind Wahlzettel zu kompliziert, oder sie wissen nicht, wie sich ihre Stimme überhaupt auf das Wahlergebnis auswirkt.

Da muss man doch was tun! Kann hier die Politik nicht aufklären?

Anna: Klar. Wer aus Unkenntnis zu Hause bleibt, den erreichen Projekte zur Demokratie-Aufklärung. Dem muss man nur mal erklären, wie so eine Wahl funktioniert. Aber es gibt auch noch die aufgeklärten Nichtwähler. Die sind bestens informiert und entscheiden sich hinterher bewusst, nicht zur Wahl zu gehen – beispielsweise, weil sie keine Partei finden, die zu ihnen passt. Schließlich ist Wählen bei uns ein Recht und keine Pflicht.

Nichtwählen kann also ein Protest gegen das politische System sein?

Kristin: Genau. In Deutschland können wir diese Gruppe der Nichtwähler nicht eindeutig identifizieren. Sie haben ja keine Möglichkeit, ihre Verweigerungs­haltung aktiv zu kommunizieren. In Mexiko gab es beispielsweise mal die Möglichkeit, sich bei einer Wahl bewusst zu enthalten, also zur Wahl zu gehen ohne einer kandidierenden Partei die Stimme zu geben. Da haben sich im Durchschnitt fünf Prozent aller Wähler enthalten, in manchen Städten sogar zehn Prozent.

Man könnte meinen, diese Verweigerungshaltung betrifft besonders bestimmte Milieus. Punks zum Beispiel.

Anna: Vorsicht mit solchen Klischees! Bei unserem internationalen Seminar zum Thema Nichtwähler, das wir vor einiger Zeit in Berlin durchgeführt haben, gab es eine Straßenumfrage. Da haben wir auch Punks befragt. Nur wenige von ihnen haben zugegeben, dass sie bekennende Nichtwähler sind und wurden von ihren Freunden dafür ganz schön angegangen: Sie mussten sich rechtfertigen, wie sie denn die Demokratie dermaßen gefährden können und warum sie ihre Stimme so leichtfertig verschenken.

Schubladendenken greift hier also zu kurz?

Anna: Ich glaube schon. Auf der anderen Seite hatten wir bei unserer Umfrage eine Gruppe konservativ gekleideter, älterer Menschen – auf den ersten Blick klassische bürgerliche Wähler. Das waren allerdings Zeugen Jehovas, die uns erklärt haben, dass sie nie wählen gehen, weil in ihren Augen Jesus der legitime Herrscher der Welt ist. Da haben wir ganz schön gestaunt.

Habt ihr bei eurem internationalen Seminar Gemeinsamkeiten unter den Teilnehmern festgestellt?

Kristin: Die Leute kamen aus England, Polen, der Türkei, Frankreich, Ungarn und Deutschland. Besonders deutlich wurde in der Diskussion, dass die Wahlbeteiligung umso mehr nachlässt, je größer der Zusammenhang ist. Nehmen wir die Europawahl: Die Ziele sind zu abstrakt und die einzelne Stimme ist im Vergleich zur Gesamtbevölkerung so wenig wert, dass die Leute teilweise ökonomisch abwägen und zu dem Schluss kommen: Da „lohnt“ es sich für mich gar nicht zu wählen.

Dabei haben die Punks doch Recht: Nichtwähler gefährden eine Demokratie, oder seht Ihr das anders?

Kristin: Das würde ich so nicht unterstreichen. Nichtwähler gefährden das Parteiensystem, das ist richtig. Wenn dem Parteiensystem durch mangelnde Wahlbeteiligung die Legitimation entzogen wird, dann muss aber eine Demokratie darauf reagieren, denn das System ist doch für den Bürger da, nicht umgekehrt.

Wie soll so eine Reaktion aussehen?

Kristin: Erstmal müssen die Parteien sich mit dem Phänomen des Nichtwählers überhaupt auseinander setzen. Mir scheint, es gibt kaum die Bereitschaft dazu. Im Rahmen unseres Seminars taten wir uns ganz schön schwer, Gesprächs­partner aus den Parteien zu finden. Da fehlt komplett das Interesse am Thema.

Anna: Jedenfalls wird das Problem sich nicht von selbst lösen, im Gegenteil: Beim aktuellen Wahlkampf finden kaum inhaltliche Auseinandersetzungen statt. So bekommt man keine Wähler an die Urne. Ich fürchte, zur Bundes­tagswahl wird die Gruppe der Nichtwähler noch mal ziemlich anwachsen.

Michael Metzger ist 26 Jahre alt, arbeitet als freier Journalist in Berlin und studiert Europäische Ethnologie, Politik und Soziologie an der Humboldt-Universität.

Thanks a quadrupillion, guys!

To vote or not to vote? from Demokratie & Dialog on Vimeo.

A few days ago, we met the Young Liberals in Berlin. Before telling you what the visit was about, let’s have a quick overview of our preparation.

We are a multicultural group of young people coming from Italy, the UK, France and Germany! We met before the meeting to prepare our questions: we were wondering who the Young Liberals were, what their target group was and what they were undertaking to convince young people to vote for them. As we don’t know Berlin very well, we decided to make a first stop in a nice area of the city and then we went to our meeting point. We took the underground and started to interview people about voting and non-voting, which was quite uncomfortable due to the different noises that you can expect in a subway.

We finally found our meeting point. Three ladies welcomed us: the director, the person in charge of communication and the person responsible for international relations. They showed us around their office, which is full of different relevant photos of Young Liberals and also different posters they had used for their campaigns. Then we introduced ourselves and the purpose of our meeting. They did the same and explained us how their organisation works.

Actually, the Young Liberals are not a party but a group of young people who aims at spreading liberal ideas. They mainly target young people from 18 to 30 in Germany and also beyond the borders. The Young Liberals are used to working with other countries of the EU and also with the USA. They are currently working on a big campaign for the next elections which will take place in September.

In order to reach their goal they use different strategies. First of all, they don’t wait for the potential voters to come but approach them directly. For example, during the summer they go to the different places where young people spend their time (festivals, cinemas…). They especially focus on first time voters who are maybe more likely to vote. Secondly, the Young Liberals use different tools, for example pencils or all sorts of items which can interest young people. They also use youth networks like Facebook. Some young volunteers are also involved in this group.

According to the Young Liberals, it is hard to define who the young non-voters are.

There are, of course, people who cannot vote because of legal reasons (youngsters under 18, migrants…). However, some people are entitled to vote but do not use their right.
We can still distinguish two different groups. The first one is those who do not vote because they are not interested in politics. The second group are those who do not vote in order to show their disagreement. They think this is a way to protest.

We think that there is a common characteristic in every European country. People are much more interested in local or national elections than the European ones. We asked the Young Liberals what they thought about the lack of interest of young people in European politics.
They first made a very intriguing comment: the first time voters in Germany were born after 1989, so they do not realize what Europe is doing for them any more.

In spite of the German specificities, we think the other answers the Young Liberals gave us are true for other European countries. People do not really feel the impact of Europe in their everyday lives. European Law is often misunderstood and Brussels is pointed at. Most of European citizens do not know that 70 or 80% of their national legislation is a transposition of European Law. Maybe this is due to citizens’ lack of information, which was the second part of their answer. People are not really aware of the EU decision process and they feel very far from their institutions. Thus, they do not really understand what is at stake in the European elections.

This is certainly partly due to what the Young Liberals called the “4th power”: the media. The European elections are not covered enough by the media. They are just talking about it in a pessimistic way, but they do not even talk about the elections themselves. A lot of people do not even know who their European MPs are. In Germany, the Federal Elections are much more on the news than the European ones. The media could certainly have more influence, especially among young people.

We would like to draw a quick comparison between what the Young Liberals said and the French situation. We also think that people do not realize how EU Law is affecting them at a local level. On the one hand, this is certainly due to the influence of the media. On the other hand, we think that there is a lack of communication of the European institutions themselves. For example, a lot of youngsters go to foreign countries thanks to European programs but do not even know where the funds come from. Maybe these youn people would be more likely to vote if the role of EU was more obvious in their everyday lives.

The lack of information is not entirely due to the media but also to the French Electoral Laws which prevent from publishing the official list of candidates earlier than two weeks before the elections. Moreover, the parties’ programs were received in the letter boxes only two days before the elections. This is also a reason why people are discouraged from voting.

The media also take advantage of the situation to talk about national issues.

The situation is similar in most of the European countries, but we are sure that things could change quickly if the institutions managed to speak the same language as their young citizens.

To end, we think that the Young Liberals, who have gained more and more influence lately, are a group who knows how to reach young people. Maybe we can say that their strategy should be used even on an apolitical level to raise the feeling of citizenship of young people in Europe.

Poster by Alix Lamotte

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.

Seven types of nonvoters, but no young people | Photo by Darwin Bell on Flickr

Kleinhenz distinguishes seven types of nonvoters, each labelled with a self-explanatory name. While these do not represent homogeneous groups, you may be able to identify one or more of these fictitious characters among your neighbours and acquaintances…

• Active post-materialists
• Upper-class conservatives
• Isolated disadvantaged persons
• Passive uninterested persons
• Saturated middle-class people
• Individualist yuppies
• Disappointed workers

The decisive motives of these different types of nonvoters for their abstention are related to ineffectiveness, individualism, alienation, disinterest, satisfaction, self-centredness or dissatisfaction – all of which can—on their own or in any given combination—be valid and comprehensible reasons for different participation behaviours.

Typologies of nonvoters largely ignore young people.
New research is needed.

And yet, like most other typologies, Kleinhenz’ model does not relate strongly enough to young people—in particular those young people aged 16 to 25—representing an increasingly large proportion of nonvoters.

His typology—and, in fairness to Thomas Kleinhenz, all others that currently exist—does not apply to today’s young generation.

We need new research engaging with the characteristics and motivations of young nonvoters!

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.

Of course there are a lot of people who care about ‘choiceless’. The great example may be this famous project in Berlin, which has recently taken place. However, the point is that before this event I didn’t know a lot about non- voters. NOW, when I can talk about them through the whole day…I am even more confused. WHY? Because there are so many reasons (why there are non-voters), so many examples (who are the non–voters), so many consequences (of non–voting) that I just do not know… how to discover various aspects of choiceless&voiceless. If I could, I would use X-ray examination to explore them, but I think it wouldn’t make any sense. In my opinion even the best scientist hasn’t got a clue about WWW – Why, Who, Where.

Is it complicated?
…maybe…
a little bit…

So I can give one illustration which presents why the problem of Choiceless & Voiceless is not so easy to understand. But firstly, I must warn every person who is already reading my article: after seeing this column, you will still not understand C&V. But you’ll understand me, at least.

Formally we have two groups of non-voters: the first part is the people who don’t consider voting important, and the second group consists of people who use non-voting to express their protest against the government. But if you think that’s all about them, you will be surprised. Why? Because many non-voters seem to be more mysterious. For instance, they neither protest against the government nor consider voting unimportant. They may have no information about politicians, they may loose the letters with candidates, the may forget that elections are on Sunday, not on Monday, they may be under 18, they may be in another country. What is worse – it often isn’t their fault. But who is responsible for such a situation then? We talk about diminishing turnout, we walk streets to encourage people to take part in the elections and immediately we hear that somebody is under 18!!! Dear parents, please – try to give birth earlier, that when we finally ask someone ‘did you vote in the last elections’, he or she could find a better reason for non-voting than ‘I am under 18’.

I’ve just shown the first example, why examining non-voters may be such difficult work. The second example may be appropriate to change people’s mind on the streets. Actually I was trying to find out, how many people met in public places consider voting unimportant. Well, I asked: “Did you vote in the last elections?” And what is amazing – almost everybody answered: “Yeah, of course, it’s very important”. And after some time, I decided to tell people that we are doing a project about non-voting, so we are looking for non-voters and, even more amazingly, I heard from most of people: “I didn’t vote…”

Good accident? Maybe.

Or maybe people just lie all the time to make me feel even more confused.

And finally, the third example why non- voters cannot be understood is me. Yeah – I didn’t vote in the last elections, because…yhm…I was in another town, so I didn’t know a lot about my local candidates…(as if I weren’t able to type into Google ‘local candidates from district…’.

Yeah, I must admit – I was just lazy and that means that I cannot be considered as a part of any group presented by me. Maybe there are more people like ‘me before’.

Because NOW – I can proudly say – I am a voter! I want to express my opinion, I wonna change something in my country and on my continent. And I can quote one man met on the street in Berlin:

“You should go and vote, because, as you live in the European Union, you have to know that the European Union’s Parliament takes decisions which affect all of us living in the European Union.”

Is it complicated?
…maybe…
a little bit…

I can’t explain this – now – it is your vote, your voice, your choice.

* * *

The turnout of federal elections after 1989 in Germany decreased. In the 1980s average turnout was about 83%, however in the 1990s it decreased to 79,6% and to 78,4% in the 2000s. We can observe a similar development in other European countries. Turnouts were the highest in Luxemburg (91% in the last European elections) and Belgium (90,04%).

The reasons of low turnout are different but common for every country. In the early 1990s in Germany it depended on the new political situation. According to political scientist Prof. Dieter Roth from Heidelberg University, when the unification of Germany became a fact people thought that everything was decided and arranged, so they could not influence anything. Another reason is that citizens are dissatisfied with democracy, parties and political personnel.

But scientists say that it is very hard to find the accurate number of non-voters and their sociological structure. PD Dr. Dorothée de Nève said this is because people lie. The real turnout is almost always different from citizens’ declaration and it is almost always lower. They feel ashamed that they did not go and vote. And this is not a strange behaviour – it is common to reproach non-voters with their attitude.

But let us have a look at non-voters sine ira et studio. First of all, people think that the importance of elections is different on different levels. The newest research lead by Heidelberg University shows that more than 80% claimed that federal parliament elections are important while less than 60% said that European elections are important as well. According to Prof. Roth this is because people do not know enough about the European Parliament (EP). EP is complicated and they do not know that EP’s decisions have a big influence on local statements. Even journalists do not have enough information.

Comparing the turnout of the European level and the federal one it appears that the last one is estimated much higher in the hierarchy of importance. Until 2009 in Germany the turnout of European elections was less than 45% while turnout of national elections (2006) was almost 80%. National elections on the same day can also increase European elections’ turnout. In Lithuania, for example, the combination of national and European elections turnout was in 2009 27,5% higher than before.

The biggest problem is a lack of identification with parties. According to surveys presented by Prof. Roth party identification decreased from about 45% in 1976 to near 30% in 2008.
For the other political reasons considered by scientists it is not true that people are not interested in politics. They are just disappointed with political parties.

We spoke with Dutch journalist Laurens Boven and with some other people in Berlin (tourists, German people, young and old people). We asked a few questions and wrote a little summary of their answers.

Q. What do you think, who are the nonvoters in your country? Are there any special groups?

Most of peoples said that in their country there are no special groups. People don’t go and vote because they think that the politics is not important. It’s usually low educated people who don’t care about voting and these people think that politicians can’t change their life.

Q. Who is responsible to encourage people to go and vote?

They said that first of all family is really important because if they have traditions, this can influence young people’s attitudes. After that the level of education plays a role and the third thing is religion. But the media impress the world and the people. ???

Q. And what about school?

Laurens Boven: “Yes, school has a big influence, now we have a lot of projects about politics at school to teach children about voting. I think it’s good but most non-voters are between 21 and 25, and at this age a lot of these usually don’t go to school.”

Q. What do you think about the Europien Union (EU)?

People usually think that the EU is a good thing, because they have more possibilities, for example in the economy and in education. But other people said that the EU is not as good because it is too big. Therefore the media play a significant role in the life of the people.

Q. What do young people think about Dutch media?

Laurens Boven: “To be honest, people don’t mind. Politics is not as prominent here as in America. People are interested in the media only before the elections and they listen for just a few minutes. The youngest who are interested identify with a party.”

Q. What would you like to say to a non-voter?

Laurens Boven: “I don’t think non-voters are right to complain, and I think it isn’t good for democracy. In a democracy you do participate, vote to say: I DON’T LIKE YOU (THE POLITICANS) AND I AM NOT HAPPY!”