European elections: why turnout drops more in Italy than elsewhere

This time there was no increase in turnout in Europe compared to previous elections. So it seems, at least on the basis of the data currently available. In 2019, on the other hand, the increase compared to the previous elections was as much as eight percentage points, reversing a downward trend that had lasted for many years. In comparison to the 2019 elections, more people voted in Germany and a little more in France, but much less in Spain. On balance, the overall turnout in the 27 countries is likely to be about the same as in 2019.

Not so in Italy. Italy, too, seems to be bucking the trend as in 2019. The final figure is still missing, but it appears to be below 50% and certainly lower than the 54.5% in 2019. The drop would have been greater if over 3,000 municipalities with over 17 million voters had not also voted. Even if only half of them had gone to vote, that would still be over 8 million, most of whom - voting for mayor - also voted in the European elections. To estimate this pull effect, one need only look at the turnout figures in municipalities where people voted for both the European and municipal elections and those where people voted only for the European elections. An initial analysis by the CISE shows that the difference is on average 17 points with clear territorial differences: in the North the points are 9, in the South 24.5. The low turnout in the European elections in our country is part of a more general phenomenon of growing abstentionism.

In the case of the European elections, the phenomenon is more pronounced because voters consider these elections less important than political and administrative elections, but the phenomenon is the same. In the years from the first European elections in 1979 to these last ones, turnout dropped by 30 percentage points. In political elections, between 1979 and 2022, it fell by 26.7 points, from 90.6 per cent to 63.9 per cent.

There is no single reason that explains this trend. The phenomenon is the result of a long-term process in which demographic, institutional, cultural and strictly political factors are intertwined. It has to do with generational change, it has to do with the end of ideologies, it has to do with the weakening of parties, and it has to do with the increasingly widespread feeling that elections do not serve to produce the change that voters demand. Least of all the European elections, which take place in a context where it is difficult for voters to understand what is at stake. The parties treat them as national elections, but unlike these, they do not serve to change the balance in Rome, while the majority of voters know nothing or almost nothing about the balance in Brussels. So why is it any wonder that more and more people do not go out to vote? Especially since they are being asked to vote for candidates with whom they have no relationship, given the size of the constituencies, or for leaders who have no intention of going to Brussels once elected. The Italians may be ill-informed, but they are not completely clueless. They need motivation to vote. Where are they today in an environment where mediocrity dominates? .