For Clément, a 25-year-old Burgundian, polling day rhymes with ritual. Family and loved ones get together, share a meal, discuss politics, elections, sometimes insult each other. After a Trou Normand, a second course and a dessert, the digestive walk to the polling station is a pretext for continuing the debates. Right, left or blank, once the ballot is slipped into the box, the troop goes home, ends the day with a game. Like a Sunday.
A ceremonial which would certainly not have seen the light of day if Clément had been born in the Netherlands. And for good reason: the Dutch, like other of our European neighbors, are not called to the polls on Sunday but during the middle of the week. A calendar that could surprise more than one on the Old Continent, where the majority of countries have opted for Sunday voting, such as Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, or Hungary.
Respect national democratic traditions
However, it is clear that behind this apparent unity, political particularisms persist, and are all the more visible on the horizon of the European election which stretches over four days – from June 6 to 9 this year. A bias since 1979, the year of the first European election by direct universal suffrage which was held from June 7 to 10 “in order to respect the democratic and political cultures of the Member States”, deciphers Alberto Alemanno, lawyer specializing in European politics and professor at HEC. “Voting in France is a very different experience from voting in Greece for example: each country has its own political, cultural and administrative traditions, which explains why voting habits can be different.”
Thus, like the land of tulips, Ireland votes during the week, most often on Friday. The latest ballot to date – a referendum aimed at modernizing references to women and the family in the Constitution – for example took place on Friday March 8. For the European elections, the Celtic Tiger does not intend to deviate from the rule, since the Irish are called to go to the polls, not on Sunday June 9, but on Friday June 7.
The Czech Republic is also among the “non-aligned”. With a little extra specificity: whether presidential, legislative or European, the vote systematically extends over two days. Generally, Friday from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m., and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. The principle is similar in Italy where voters have a day and a half to vote. Thus, as for the legislative elections or referendums, our transalpine neighbors will be able to choose between Saturday June 8 and Sunday June 9 to slip a ballot into the ballot box.
The two-day vote, a tool against abstention?
Extend the vote over several days? A tradition which survives despite “its very high cost”, explains Alberto Alemanno: “By maintaining the vote over two days, the States hope to obtain a higher participation rate.” Looking more closely, two phenomena are observed: the Member States which extend the vote over two days are at the same time the countries where participation is the highest – Malta, for example, where almost three quarters of the electorate moved in 2019 – and those where it is lowest, such as Slovakia, where participation barely reached 23% in 2019.
This option can therefore be presented both as an origin of democratic vitality and as a tool to combat abstention. For Alberto Alemanno, France, which has observed a high level of abstention for several years, would benefit from extending the opening of polling stations by half a day or a day. “There is a whole literature which demonstrates that by giving more options to citizens, countries manage to have a higher participation rate”, he insists before adding: “Word of mouth is for example much more effective when the vote is held over two days.”
“Minimal” harmonization
If the EU has decided to give Member States a free hand on voting day, they are nevertheless bound by a series of obligations defined in the Act relating to the election of members of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage. In its article 10, the text, for example, obliges States to organize European elections between Thursday and Sunday. Reason why the Netherlands, whose voters normally vote on Wednesdays, postpones the holding of the vote until Thursday. Italy was also forced to adapt, by organizing the election over the weekend rather than Sunday and Monday, as is tradition.
In addition, regardless of the day chosen by the States, all have the obligation to wait until all the members have voted before making public the verdict of the ballot.
Towards a single date?
In recent years, several voices have been raised in favor of a revision of the European electoral regulations, which will celebrate its fiftieth candle in 2026. “It is high time to introduce changes this year, otherwise the system will be the same in 2024,” argued Vera Jourova, vice-president of the European Commission in 2022. In the spring of the same year, the Spanish MEP Domènec Ruiz Devesa threw a stone into the pond. Through a text which proposes harmonization of European elections, the elected official promised to “resolve the problem of 27 parallel elections”.
Among the measures defended by the rapporteur, the establishment of parity between women and men in the lists, the lowering of the voting age limit to 16 years, the recognition of postal voting, but also the use of May 9 , Europe Day, as the single and common date for the European elections. An initiative which attracted a majority of European parliamentarians: 323 of them adopted the reform, which however never came into force. Alberto Alemanno seems to know the reason: “The member states were opposed to it, and never ratified the text because they feared that the Europeans would cast too much shadow on their national political class.”