Reforming European elections: Could a pan-European ballot paper engage EU voters?

European Parliament elections are frequently criticised from the perspective that they suffer low turnout levels and tend to be dominated by national rather than European political issues.

Damien Bol presents findings from a study on whether the creation of a Europe-wide electoral district, elected via a pan-European list of candidates, could help engage EU citizens. He notes that while there is great potential in this system as a mechanism for addressing the EU’s democratic deficit, it would need to be carefully calibrated to prevent the European Parliament from becoming dominated by representatives of larger member states.