Voter turnout in the context of "Abstention"

The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union (EU) and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts European legislation, following a proposal by the European Commission. The Parliament is composed of 720 members (MEPs), after the June 2024 European elections, from a previous 705 MEPs. It represents the second-largest democratic electorate in the world (after the Parliament of India), with an electorate of around 375 million eligible voters in 2024.

Since 1979, the Parliament has been directly elected every five years by the citizens of the European Union through universal suffrage. Voter turnout in parliamentary elections decreased each time after 1979 until 2019, when voter turnout increased by eight percentage points, and rose above 50% for the first time since 1994. The voting age is 18 in all EU member states except for Malta, Belgium, Austria and Germany, where it is 16, and Greece, where it is 17.

Voter suppression is the discouragement or prevention of specific groups of people from voting or registering to vote. It is distinguished from political campaigning in that campaigning attempts to change likely voting behavior by changing the opinions of potential voters through persuasion and organization, activating otherwise inactive voters, or registering new supporters. Voter suppression, instead, attempts to gain an advantage by reducing the turnout of certain voters. Suppression is an anti-democratic tactic associated with authoritarianism.

The tactics of voter suppression range from changes that increase voter fatigue, to intimidating or harming prospective voters.

"Get out the vote" or "getting out the vote" (GOTV) describes efforts aimed at increasing the voter turnout in elections. In countries that do not have or enforce compulsory voting, voter turnout can be low, sometimes even below a third of the eligible voter pool. GOTV efforts typically attempt to register voters, then get them to vote, by absentee ballot, early voting or election day voting. GOTV is generally not required for elections when there are effective compulsory voting systems in place, other than perhaps to register first time voters.

There are two types of GOTV efforts. The first type is general voter registration campaigns and encouragement to vote, conducted by electoral authorities or nonpartisan organizations. The second type is partisan work targeted at potential voters who are likely to vote a particular way. For partisans it may be easier and more cost effective to encourage voting by a hundred supporters who did not vote in the past, than it is to convince fifty voters to switch support from one party to the other. This situation can lead to polarized electoral politics. A 70% turnout from a party's committed base can be better than a 50 percent turnout from both committed and marginal supporters.

Abstention is a term in election procedure for when a participant in a vote either does not go to vote (on election day) or, in parliamentary procedure, is present during the vote but does not cast a ballot. Abstention must be contrasted with "blank vote", in which a voter casts a ballot willfully made invalid by marking it wrongly or by not marking anything at all. A "blank voter" has voted, although their vote may be considered a spoilt vote, depending on each legislation, while an abstaining voter has not voted. Both forms (abstention and blank vote) may or may not, depending on the circumstances, be considered to be a protest vote (also known as a "blank vote"). Abstention is related to political apathy and low voter turnout.

An abstention may be used to indicate the voting individual's ambivalence about the measure, or mild disapproval that does not rise to the level of active opposition. Abstention can also be used when someone has a certain position about an issue, but since the popular sentiment supports the opposite, it might not be politically expedient to vote according to their conscience. A person may also abstain when they do not feel adequately informed about the issue at hand, or have not participated in relevant discussion. In parliamentary procedure, a member may be required to abstain in the case of a real or perceived conflict of interest.

In political science, political apathy is a lack of interest or apathy towards politics. This includes voter apathy, information apathy and lack of interest in elections, political events, public meetings, and voting.

Voter apathy is a lack of interest among voters in the elections of representative democracies. Political apathy or lack of interest is often cited as a cause of low turnout among eligible voters in jurisdictions where voting is optional, and the donkey vote where voting is compulsory. This phenomenon occurs to some extent across all countries or entities where citizens are able to vote. Political apathy has led to increased concerns regarding representative democracies because election results do not encompass the entire population who are eligible to vote.

The 1998 Greater London Authority referendum was held in Greater London on 7 May 1998. The referendum asked whether there was support for creating a Greater London Authority composed of a directly elected Mayor of London and a London Assembly to scrutinise the Mayor's actions. Voter turnout was low, at just 34.1%. The referendum was held under the Greater London Authority (Referendum) Act 1998 provisions. Polling day coincided with the 1998 London local elections.

Constitutional Assembly elections were held in the recently proclaimed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia) on 28 November 1920. The election was held in the context of political debate over the degree of centralisation or potential federalisation of Yugoslavia. The election was held in the entire territory of the country except the areas obtained shortly beforehand through the Treaty of Rapallo which regulated the borders with Italy because those areas were still under Italian occupation. The election legislation was enacted by the Temporary National Representation, a representative body appointed after creation of Yugoslavia. The legislation prescribed the universal manhood suffrage, except for Hungarian and German minorities, certain former Ottoman Empire nationals and Jews.

A total of 22 political parties or groups fielded candidates in 55 electoral districts which were determined based on pre-First World War censuses. Varying degrees of wartime losses and the suffrage regulations led to significant differences in the number of registered voters per parliamentary seat. There was a 65% voter turnout for the election. None of the parties won a majority of the 419 seats available. The Democratic Party (DS) and the People's Radical Party (NRS) emerged as the largest factions, winning 92 and 91 seats respectively. The third-most successful party at the election was the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ), winning 58 seats, followed by the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) receiving 50 seats. The HSS was the only party to win an absolute majority in any province. Thus it became the leading Croatian political party.

The Scottish devolution referendum of 1997 was a pre-legislative referendum held in Scotland on 11 September 1997 over whether there was support for the creation of a Scottish Parliament with devolved powers, and whether the Parliament should have tax-varying powers. The result was "Yes–Yes": a majority voted in favour of both proposals, and the Parliament was established following an election in 1999. Turnout for the referendum was 60.4%.

The referendum was a Labour Party manifesto commitment and was held in their first term in office after the 1997 general election, under the provisions of the Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Act 1997. It was the second referendum held in Scotland over the question of devolution, the first being in 1979, and is to date the only major referendum to be held in any part of the United Kingdom where voters were asked two questions in the same plebiscite.