For those of you who became enthralled with the EU Parliamentary Elections due to The Monkey Cage’s coverage last week (“here”:https://themonkeycage.org/2009/06/a_bluffers_guide_to_the_europe.html, “here”:https://themonkeycage.org/2009/06/a_bluffers_guide_to_the_what.html, and “here”:https://themonkeycage.org/2009/06/strategic_voting_and_the_eu_pa_1.html), I wanted to bring to your attention that the results can now be found on the “EU’s Website”:http://www.elections2009-results.eu/ in 23 different languages. In addition, they have some very nifty graphical displays of the results “here”:http://www.elections2009-results.eu/en/new_parliament_en.html. CNN also has a nice, “very concise, summary, of the results”:http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/06/08/europe.elections.breakdown/ from about half of the countries. All in all, the “NY Times reports”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/world/europe/09union.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=all:
bq. Only 43 percent of Europeans voted — a record low turnout, despite the financial crisis and compulsory voting in some countries. Far-right parties, opposed to the European Union and to immigrants from poor member countries, recorded gains, as did the Greens. Those who did vote weighed in largely on national issues.
As an aside, I continue to wonder what it is that we are supposed to conclude from the fact that EU parliamentary elections had “record low turnout”. 43% of the population turning out for what is by all accounts a “2nd order” institution actually strikes me as a fairly high percentage of the population to vote in such an election. Ought we to expect EU parliamentary elections to attract as many voters as national elections? If the answer is no, then what is the correct benchmark? Off-year congressional elections in the US? State and local elections? Granted, there is obviously some interesting information in the fact that turnout has “decreased in every year that EU parliamentary elections have been held”:http://www.elections2009-results.eu/en/hist_turnout_eu_en.html, but at what point does lower turnout become a “problem”? Does lower turnout really signify a loss in support for the idea of Europe, or does it just reflect a growing understanding on the part of the European population that, at the end of the day, the EU parliament is not all that important a political institution? (And yes, this could still be the case despite the paradoxical fact that turnout has gone down as the actual powers of the EU parliament have increased.)