“Did you know there are companies that create extra shifts on election days just to keep people away from voting? If voting becomes compulsory governments will have to make sure this doesn’t happen.” – There are also companies that do it the other way around – they give people time off to go and vote the way they want and etc. It’s a different problem. The government should make sure neither of this happens anyway.

““I don’t think that this will improve the quality of the votes.” Love how your own personal ‘feelings’ are more important than actual research which says the exact opposite….” – And why should our personal opinions value less than ‘actual research’? It’s a matter of opinion here, not just of statistics, which have not been made after experimenting precisely with the issue discussed here, but rather extrapolating from an example. Social sciences like this are not an ‘exact’ science where you can just see numbers and conclude indubitably one way or another. It needs interpretations, and these often vary.

Did you know there are companies that create extra shifts on election days just to keep people away from voting? If voting becomes compulsory governments will have to make sure this doesn’t happen.

Take a look at the exaples in Belgium or in Australia, in these countries the system is the MOST VOTER FRIENDLY IN THE WORLD… I guess that should be a sign..

“Europe and its policy seems to be considered to be “dispensable enough to be neglected”. And that right there is a HUGE mistake.

“I don’t think that this will improve the quality of the votes.” Love how your own personal ‘feelings’ are more important than actual research which says the exact opposite….

” I’d rather invest in a real European campaign” and I’d rather invest that money in creating jobs, improving education and helping the lower classes get more equal chances.. But hey, that’s just me..

Upon reading the debate carefully and thinking about this matter personally for a very long time I still cannot bring myself to support the idea of compulsory voting.

First of all, I would like to contest Wieke’s premise that low-income, less-educated voters are the ones which are currently absent from elections. I would even argue the opposite, that the turnout is higher in the lower-educated part of the population (in regular elections, i don’t have numbers for EP, but believe the same principle applies). This may differ from country to country, but I can give you the example of Romania where the older, retired, rural-based population are always more present in elections than the young, university-level educated part of society. Why you will ask? Because for the low-income population voting is a right they take pleasure in participating, hoping perhaps for a change, believing in one or another promise of politicians, while the younger people have developed a rather disinterest in the political game, that sways one way or another depending on the current context, and which usually does not help them all that much. It comes from a lack of trust in the politicians.
As far as I know also, usually election days are either declared days off or happen in the already existing days off (weekends) especially so that people don’t have to take days off from work to attend.
What also supports a low turnout of young, student population in some place could be the fact that students study far way from their birthplace, and are usually not registered in their new university cities. At least in some countries this happens for sure. This could be easily fixed by creating special booths for this kind of people to vote for all elections from wherever they are.

Now back to the issue at hand. I support the arguments that a forced attendence will not increase the level of interest in political activities of the EU, and will create a negative atmosphere “another thing the EU is forcing us to do” kind of reaction. I don’t think it will make people avoid everything related to EU in media and etc. as someone mentioned above, but it will surely create a rather unpleasant feeling of another imposed regulation coming from the EU.

What I believe would increase turnout in EP elections, besides a more proper information campaign in all member state is changing the way EP elections work, separating them from national/regional law and regulation and allowing them to differentiate themselves from national politics. This, and making the EP even more relevant on European-level policy making, by giving it a greater role in European-law making would probably make the people at least partly more interested in them.

I believe that the way to achieve higher participation in EU elections is education+information and, as already mentioned in other comments, a stronger role of the elected bodies and an increase on the democracy of some EU institutions as the European Commission. I don’t think that the money spent on the campaign to move people to vote in European Parliament Elections in 2009 as too much. I don’t have ciphers for all Europe but I believe it is much smaller than the money spent in local or regional elections if we put all them together. The positive benefit of making voting compulsory is that the content of the campaign will have to be shifted from “motivate people to vote” to provide real information on programs and proposals of each political option, which for the moment is much needed as the campaign, at least in many countries, is focused on just participation, and most of times it is hijacked by national parties discussing local issues. The fact that the elections are couples (in some cases even by law) to regional and or local elections makes it even more difficult to separate European and Local politics.

As a conclusion, I’d rather invest in a real European campaign focused on programs and informing about the role of European Institutions in the daily life of citizens, than in making voting compulsory and its enforcement. In any case, a special effort should be made to make sure that no citizen is prevented from voting due to economical or labor reasons (what Wieke called “forced abstention”).

Another point I would like to raise is the one of the blank vote in the case of compulsory voting. Under my understanding, in this case the number of blank votes should be equivalent to empty seats. I argue this mainly for two reasons, the first one is a matter of giving a real meaning and real consequences to this vote, as by establishing compulsory voting we are eliminating ways of expressing discontent with the totality of candidates or to the EU as a polity. The second one is that this change will foster debate and negotiations in the Parliament, making majorities more difficult and the need of compromises higher. I believe that both giving the possibility of challenging the EU as such with voting and forcing greater negotiations and compromises would give greater legitimacy to the European Union in the long term.

In what regards to the main topic of this discussion, I think that the increase of the turnout in the European Elections should come from giving greater power to the European Parliament and allowing citizens to elect Commissioners directly (or at least establish the obligation for political groups to state their candidates for each position of the commission and eliminating the rule of having one Commissioner per Member State). I also agree with you with the fact that we need more debate of ideas on the European level and I think this would come with the possibility of electing the Commissioners. Until now, because of having a technical Commission we have prioritized the idea of a neoliberal Europe rather than a social one and the choice for change has always been very limited.

You can only vote upon things you know about. I consider myself as eager when it
comes to elections but concerning the EU elections I do not have any clue about
what I should vote for and for which reason. But this is the most crucial part!
When it comes to elections in my country I know what I am voting for and which
consequences my ballot can have, concerning the EU I have no such feeling.
Hence, there must be more information spread about what to vote upon and for which sake (yes, I read newspapers – by the way one cannot expect the European citizens to study EU policy in order to take responsibly part in EU elections…).
The whole situation is aggravated by the fact that the ways of policy in the EU is not obvious at all. Many people already bother with national institutions and elections. Europe and its policy seems to be considered to be “dispensable enough to be neglected”.
Especially the behaviour of different institutions during the crisis strengthenes
this image: As players are considered bigger banks and other investors, the national gouvernments and the European Central Bank.
Policy made by the EU has to become more visible and comprehensible.

Concerning Wieke:
Forcing people to vote will not strengthen the respect and reliability in the EU,
I rather expect the opposite to happen. And a defiant citizen is not a good one imho.

Concerning Pavelko:
Though we accord in the opinion (see reply to Wieke) I would not go so far with
such assumptions like “they will try to avoid all kind of information about the
European parliament for example in media or news”. Electors are adult people, still.