What Explains the Decline of Voter Turnout in Parliamentary Elections over the Last 40 Years? Discuss with Reference to at Least Three West European States

What explains the decline of voter turnout in parliamentary elections over the last 40 years? Discuss with reference to at least Three West European states

In the following essay I will discuss the reasons which could be responsible for the decline of the voter turnout in parliamentary elections over the last 40 years. I will reference to the following countries, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and also France and Switzerland for a better understanding of the subject.

First I will give a short overview of the topic of voter turnout in Western Europe and the reasons of why voter turnout is declining and what is done by the states to help and solve this issue to then move on and look at the situation in the specific countries.

If you look at the statistics of voter turnout of the last 40 years you can see that voter turnout is not a new issue. But voter turnout has become a more extensively debated issue in Western Europe during the 1990s and the average turnout for elections has indeed declined since the early 1990s.These issues of declining voter turnouts are brought up with "particular concern ...after spectacular drops such as the 12 per cent drop in the UK between the general elections of 1997 and 2001....There was a decline in turnout in 11 of the 15 member states between the 1994 and 1999 European elections ..." The debate as to whether this decline in voter turnout reflects a significant long-term shift in the willingness of Western European electors to participate in democracy through the act of voting is still ongoing. Of course there is a difference between a low and a declining turnout. A low turnout means a constant low turnout in a country, as found in Switzerland. "Turnout in Switzerland is amongst the lowest in Western Europe" Whereas a decline in voter turnout "indicates change, and could indicate dissatisfaction or a change of perception of the impact of the political system..."

There are, however, consistent findings that the voter turnout is related to political systems, frameworks and institutions. Such as, proportional representation systems tend to be associated with higher turnout..."while, the call for citizens to visit the polling station 'too frequently' to participate in elections and/or referenda may depress turnout" Also, political sociologists assume that a country's social and economic features, such as material prosperity and levels of education, will be one of the primary influences on electoral participation.

In fact when the public was asked in a survey, why they were not inclined to vote, the outcome was that "20% of the people who did not vote said that is was simply to inconvenient for them to do so.16% failed to vote as they were on holiday at the time, 11% did not receive a polling card and 10% said that they had no political interest at all. These factors combine to create the low percentage of the people voting in elections.

However, there are other reasons which could play an important role in the decline of voter turnout. For example, the fact that people have to be more mobile in their jobs today as well as in many families both parents have a job which means people are busier and have got less time to vote. And also voting needs to be made easier for the elderly and the disabled. This problem of no time is tried to be solved by electronic voting, "Remote voting and electronic voting have become prominent on the agenda in Europe as politicians and electoral authorities attempt to attract young voters and busy voters by enabling them to vote at the supermarket, over the Internet or by using their mobile phone." A few cantons in Switzerland and the UK have actually tried e-voting and also postal voting. A factor that adds up with this and makes people even less likely to vote is that people feel that their vote has no impact anyway.

Also, another discussion is the one about if there is a connection between the role of media and electoral turnout. Is the existence of more and more TV channels, newspapers and radio stations giving people access to more in depth coverage of elections and politics or is the vast increase in media leading to ignorance of politics, lack of interest and apathy instead.

Another reason could be the lack of compelling choices being presented to the voter, this means career politicians selected centrally or parachuted into safe seats reinforce the view that they don't really represent their constituency and will just follow the party line. "It would seem that many voters miss the 'Gentleman Parliamentarian' for whom becoming an MP was the logical conclusion of their local involvement as opposed to being a stepping stone to greater things."

Another major issue is the fact that citizens feel that they do not know enough about the issues to make a responsible choice. This means that there is not enough education and publicity so people rather not vote at all. "Evidence from recent mayoral referenda and going as far back as a mid-1970s referendum in Sweden on the use of nuclear power shows that concerted campaigns providing publicity(making the vote an event) and delivering free, unbiased, education on the issues has a very positive impact on turnout"

Also, the results of recent elections have been seen as "foregone conclusions thus reducing the motivation for 'floating' and reluctant voters to get out to the polling station....This is reinforced by the constituency First Past the Post voting system which distorts the will of the voter and thus encourages tactical voting which can often make defeats look worse than they really were." And also minority views are very unlikely to win through to get representation-the result is that the voters with those minority views choose not to vote as they know that their party will not win.

However, in the UK at the most recent election, in 2001, Voter turnout declined by several percentage points, "to 59, 4 per cent" , which is the lowest ever since the introduction of universal suffrage. This steady decline you can see when you compare the results of 2001 to the post-war electoral turnout: in 1945, it was 72.8% in 1950 it was 84 %. "The highest levels of turnout measured in the UK were in the 1950s." So in the past years the number of citizens voting in the general elections has steadily been declining and this is even though the United Kingdom is one of the most established democracies in the World.

A reason for the decline could be that the public becomes more and more disillusioned with what they see as abuse of power by their representatives.

Also a reason that leads to a decline in voter turnout is the fact that many politicians fail