European elections consistently show lower turnout of voters compared to national elections. Two types of explanations have been proposed for this lower turnout. The first is the “don’t know” explanation: European citizens are not adequately informed about what the EU does, what the role of European Parliament (EP) is, and what impact their vote can have. The second explanation is that they “don’t care”: voters do not care about European elections because they might think that EU policies do not affect them or because they might think that they cannot impact EU policies.
This study employs a panel survey experiment one month before the 2024 European elections, with a follow-up in the days after the vote for the same respondents, to see whether giving voters more information about what the European Parliament does and presenting respondents with hypothetical increases in the powers of the European Parliament, affects their propensity intention to voter, their views of the European Parliament, and eventual real-world vote.
Results show that information increases intention to vote. Surprisingly, hypothetical increases in the powers of the EP decrease the intention to vote among almost all groups of respondents, as well as their rating of the EP. Among respondents that are skeptical of the EU or perceive a democratic deficit, this negative effect is more pronounced. Even among pro-EU respondents, among those that prefer to see a stronger role for the Commission, the backlash is strong.
Both treatment groups (between-subject design) showed higher propensity to report actual voting in the follow-up survey in the days after the actual elections took place. The result is robust to attrition checks, individual fixed effects (within-subject design), and placebo tests.