THE PROJECT VOLUME - Chapter 9

Open Cite VOLUME

Publisher:  Pragma Publishing
Online publication date:  December 2023
Chapter DOI:  https://doi.org/10.62483/97304320

Opportunities for Citizens to Participate in Organising Elections in Europe

Andreas Albertsen and Annabelle Lever

ABSTRACT

Part of the aim of the REDEM project is to identify and develop new ways of engaging citizens in elections, whether they are currently willing or entitled to vote. This chapter discusses one particular idea for expanding citizens' electoral participation: To employ those currently disengaged with electoral democracy as electoral support staff (i.e., polling station staff) on election day. It focuses primarily on those who are too young to vote, and on adults who are not allowed or are not willing to vote. We examine the experiences and theoretical merits of a proposal that seeks to engage citizens with democratic elections by opening opportunities to take part in their administrative aspects, even if they are unwilling or ineligible to vote.

The chapter first identifies a gap in the existing approach to engaging voters in a democracy and situates the current proposal as a halfway-house between approaches that engage citizens as voters and those that engage them through non-electoral measures. Engaging citizens as electoral support staff is different from engaging them as voters. To enhance our understanding of what the proposal entails the chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the tasks currently performed by electoral support staff. It then examines the barriers to introducing the proposal by looking at current limits to who is allowed to fill the roles of polling station staff across a wide range of European countries. Doing so provides a picture of current limits and opportunities for engaging the politically uninterested or disengaged in electoral democracies.

Citation
Albertsen, Andreas, and Annabelle Lever. 2023. ‘Opportunities for Citizens to Participate in Organising Elections in Europe’. In Reconstructing Democracy in Times of Crisis - A Voter-Centred Perspective, ed. Annabelle Lever. Paris: Pragma Publishing, 267–84. https://doi.org/10.62483/97304320.
Albertsen, A., & Lever, A. (2023). Opportunities for Citizens to Participate in Organising Elections in Europe. In A. Lever (Ed.), Reconstructing Democracy in Times of Crisis—A Voter-Centred Perspective (pp. 267–284). Pragma Publishing. https://doi.org/10.62483/97304320
Albertsen, Andreas, and Annabelle Lever. 2023. ‘Opportunities for Citizens to Participate in Organising Elections in Europe’. In Reconstructing Democracy in Times of Crisis - A Voter-Centred Perspective, edited by Annabelle Lever, 267–84. Paris: Pragma Publishing. https://doi.org/10.62483/97304320.
Albertsen, A. and Lever, A. (2023) ‘Opportunities for Citizens to Participate in Organising Elections in Europe’, in A. Lever (ed.) Reconstructing Democracy in Times of Crisis - A Voter-Centred Perspective. Paris: Pragma Publishing, pp. 267–284. Available at: https://doi.org/10.62483/97304320.
Albertsen, Andreas, and Annabelle Lever, ‘Opportunities for Citizens to Participate in Organising Elections in Europe’, in Reconstructing Democracy in Times of Crisis - A Voter-Centred Perspective, ed. by Annabelle Lever (Paris: Pragma Publishing, 2023), pp. 267–84 <https://doi.org/10.62483/97304320>
Albertsen, Andreas, and Annabelle Lever. ‘Opportunities for Citizens to Participate in Organising Elections in Europe’. Reconstructing Democracy in Times of Crisis - A Voter-Centred Perspective, edited by Annabelle Lever, Pragma Publishing, 2023, pp. 267–84, https://doi.org/10.62483/97304320.
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