“Don’t Know, Don’t Care?” How information and institutional reform affect voting in supranational elections: experimental evidence from the 2024 European Parliamentary elections

Abstract European elections consistently show lower turnout compared to national elections. Two types of explanations have been proposed. The first is the “don’t know” explanation: European citizens are not adequately informed about what the EU does, what the role of the 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 that the European Parliament is not an important actor in EU politics. I use a between-subject survey experiment in 16 EU countries, with approximately 30,000 respondents, one month before the 2024 European elections, with a follow-up in the days after the vote, 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 intention to vote and eventual real-world vote. Results show that information increases likelihood to vote. Importantly, these effects last and increase actual voting propensity a month later. Surprisingly, hypothetical increases in the powers of the EP decrease the likelihood to vote among almost all groups of respondents. Among respondents that are skeptical of the EU or perceive a democratic deficit, this negative effect is more pronounced. Even among pro-EU respondents and among those that prefer to see a stronger role for the Commission, the backlash is strong. When considering increasing the powers of the EP, the European Union has little to gain and much to lose when it comes to civic participation. The EU needs to first improve its legitimacy before considering political reforms.