Encouraging the vote: measures against abstention in Europe

It’s a record under the V^e Republic. According to final figures released Tuesday by the Interior Ministry, 66.72% of voters abstained from voting, Sunday, June 20, in the first round of regional elections, and 66.68% for departmental. In some cities, the proportion of French people who shunned the ballot box leaves us speechless: in Roubaix, near Lille, 84% of those registered are not displaced.

France has thus beaten by more than 10 points its previous abstention record for a first round of regional. So far, the highest abstention dates from 2010, with 53.67%. Campaign disrupted by the Covid-19, problems with the delivery of electoral documents, criticism of the dates chosen by the government for the ballot … the political world is trying to find explanations in the face of such a democratic fiasco.

Elsewhere in Europe, our neighbors have also had the difficult task of organizing elections during the pandemic. Apart from Portugal, which recorded a sharp decline in participation in the presidential election with just under 40% of voters, the other countries managed to limit the damage.

In the Netherlands, turnout even exceeded 80% in the parliamentary elections in March. In addition to spreading the ballot over three days, distance voting for those over 70 years of age also undoubtedly encouraged participation.

Germany has been voting remotely since 1957

Germans also voted on June 6, during the elections in Saxony-Anhalt. Participation was maintained above 60%. A figure which remains to be put into perspective in view of the considerable importance of the Länder in German political life.

Since 1957, postal voting has been firmly rooted in the habits of voters across the Rhine. Frauds are rare and not very significant, explains to France 24 the political scientist and economist Ernst Stetter, special advisor to the president of the Jean-Jaurès Foundation for Europe. “Postal voting is not at all called into question in Germany, quite the contrary. With the health crisis and the federal elections coming up in September, many voters will ask themselves the question.”

>> See also: Pascal Perrineau: “The abstention only partially distorts the results of the regional”

Abolished in 1975, the return of remote voting is regularly debated in France, but many politicians are opposed to it to preserve the secrecy of the vote. The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, estimated in a column published in November 2020 on social networks that “only the voting booth (…) made it possible to guarantee that the voters are free citizens and equal in law, free to hold their secret ballot “.

Despite these reservations, can the German postal vote give a boost to the French citizen mobilization? Not so sure, according to Ernst Stetter. “Postal voting is a convenience and can be applied anywhere, but it will not solve the abstention problem. The problem is on another level. It is a problem of leadership, political supply and perception. voters vis-à-vis the democratic system. “

Estonia, champion of online voting

Another avenue envisaged, that of Internet voting. This proposal had already returned to the front of the media scene during the organization of the 2020 municipal elections, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Several elected members of the majority want to explore this possibility before the presidential election. In his program, candidate Macron also defended the idea of ​​”electronic voting which will broaden participation, reduce the costs of elections and modernize the image of politics”.

However, there is a lot of resistance on the subject, particularly in the context of the proliferation of computer attacks and the risk of foreign interference.

Globally, the countries of the European Union are reluctant to this idea. Most of the experiments carried out in our neighbors over the past two decades have been halted. In 2014, Norway notably suspended the use of digital voting after finding that voters had voted twice. In Switzerland, dematerialized voting has not been possible since 2019.

In Europe, Estonia is today an exception. A pioneer in this field, the Baltic country of 1.3 million inhabitants is the only member of the EU to offer, in addition to the physical ballot, Internet voting for all its elections.

From the beginning of the 2000s, Tallinn began to build a legal framework and a reliable and efficient digital identification system. In addition, the government has been heavily involved in the development of the Internet and in the training of the population. The share of voters who opt for online voting has never stopped increasing, reaching 43.8% in the legislative elections in 2019.

Make voting compulsory

As soon as abstention skyrockets in France, envious glances also turn to our Belgian neighbors. In the “flat country”, voting has been compulsory since 1893. A voter who does not go to the polls may be forced to pay a fine of 40 to 80 euros, and up to 200 euros in the event of a repeat offense. The participation is exemplary, even during the European elections, traditionally shunned by the voters of the Old Continent.

In Greece too, voting is not a right but a duty. No financial penalty for refusing to go to the voting booth, but administrative consequences. In Luxembourg, voting is also compulsory and fines can climb up to 1,000 euros in the event of a repeat offense – in theory, because in practice the sanctions are never applied. In Switzerland, only the canton of Schaffhausen has such a provision. Violators, on the other hand, risk only a symbolic fine.

In France, compulsory voting has never been introduced. In 2017, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the boss of France Insoumise, had proposed it, from the age of 16. During the great national debate organized after the yellow vests crisis in 2019, this idea had received 57% favorable opinions, according to the government.

Yet here again, compulsory voting is far from appearing as a miracle solution. In France, political parties fear a rise in extremes with the adoption of such a measure. “People who are not going to vote, if you force them, can vote against the system, therefore for extremes”, specifies Gilles Toulemonde, lecturer in public law at the University of Lille, questioned by the newspaper Le Monde.

Finally, despite the introduction of compulsory voting, abstention can also increase, as in Greece where the share of voters has been declining in recent years. In Bulgaria, the measure introduced in 2016 also failed to boost participation to more than 50%. In addition, several European countries have given up on compulsory voting, such as Italy, in 1993, or more recently Cyprus, in 2017.