Thistimeimvoting.eu
On 24th September, we took part in a workshop for the #thistimeimvoting campaign
On 24th September, we took part in a workshop for the #thistimeimvoting campaign, which seeks to engage voters in the EU to increase turnout at the elections to be held in May 2019 in the 28 Member States.
Although for the sake of agility and the scope for going viral the campaign is being run digitally through social media, the strategy is to engage the whole electorate, in the light of some worrying facts:
- Only 37% of Europeans feel committed to representative democracy, compared to 42% who feel slightly committed and 22% not committed at all (not democrats), according to research by Pew Research Center*. In Spain, those who identify as committed are three per cent fewer (34%) and the least committed plus the non-democrats make up the remaining 57%.
- Political reasons led for the most part to abstention in the European elections in 2014 (50% of voters in the EU and 70% of voters in Spain), followed by technical or personal reasons (37% of EU voters against 27% in Spain).
- For young people, abstention rises to 73%, with only 27% of young Europeans (18 to 24) saying that they voted at the last European elections in 2014.
For young people, abstention rises to 73%
The need for a narrative that engages voters based on facts, on data and, above all, on experience is the organising principle of the ideas that we put forward to the tens of participants in the workshop, which was staged by the Spanish office of the European Parliament.
The main lines of action proposed for the campaign include:
- Be where young people are
- Involve celebrities, YouTubers, etc.
- Do things in an innovative way on a local scale
- Create ambassadors: in your business, in your association, in your environment
- Sing from the same hymn sheet as part of a European identity
- Schedule one day in May for an international gathering/meal to be entitled “United in Diversity”
- Set up information tents in public spaces
- Publish a list of important achievements of the European Union in our own country, city, neighbourhood…
- Fight disinformation: react and rebut
- Put faces to stories, experiences..., particularly drawing on the Erasmus Programme
- Improve postal and internet voting
Are you up for this?
www.thistimeimvoting.eu
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