Help me find some numbers...

[AaronSofaer]

... on the EU and its member states' voting histories.

Specifically, I'm looking for hard numbers on the 2005, 2009, and at least one previous (any year in the last ten) votes for the European Parliament, and votes from same or similar years in that same country for any other election (national election, even county elections if they're nation-wide, President/Prime Minister, etc).

My purpose is, for a class assignment, to take a look at any different in voter participation or voter apathy between the EP and the EU member states themselves when voting on a national or smaller level, and to see if anything has changed over the last few elections.

My Google-fu has failed me, getting me no hard numbers and only qualitative stuff which doesn't fill my needs.

[AaronSofaer]

I found some numbers! Just not all of them I'm looking for.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/parliament/archive/elections2009/en/turnout_en.html

Still trying to find data for the countries' national elections. Though some stuff jumps out immediately, probably enough to write an essay on just in and of itself.

[Johan O]

I found the number 4. Hope that helps.

There is also this link to the Swedish election bureau, it is not as useful as the number 4 though.
http://www.val.se/in_english/previous_elections/index.html

[AaronSofaer]

Quick question just to make sure I don't misunderstand, Johan:

When I go to the 2006 Riksdag Election subpage, it says "Election participation, 81,99 (+1,88 %)".

I presume that means the same thing as "Election turnout: 81.99% +/- 1.88%"?

Thank you very much, I totally couldn't find Sweden's information (found some other countries, though, truckin' away on the paper!).

[Johan O]

It's up 1,88% from the previous election.

[AaronSofaer]

Ah! That makes more sense.

What's your (okay, anecdotal, whatever) opinion of the discrepancy between the 2006 Riksdag election turnout and the 2004 EP turnout? I've been crunching a lot of numbers over the last three days, and nearly every country in the EU has incredibly shitty turnout for EP elections. I'm trying to figure out more about why.

[Johan O]

Anecdotally. The EU has never had a strong support in Sweden, so one factor would be people that are negative to the EU are less prone to vote in EP elections. There is a general perception that the EP is less powerfull than the council of minsters and the european commissioners, so there is a bit of cynisism about the usefullness of voting. The big European powers are percieved to dominate the EU, once again inducing cynicism about the usefullness of participating. The EP gets a lot less media exposure than the general elections, though it seems to be increasing. The political heavy hitters and recognisible faces are active mostly in the national arena, though a few have made switch to the EP.

As an aside, I do not think it a coincidence that the percentage voting for the Pirate Party closely mirrors the increase in voters in percentile units.

[AaronSofaer]

Interesting perspective, vis-a-vis the EU. Thanks for your thoughts; they backed up, to a large extent, the conclusions I reached, and the site you linked was very useful.