Today we run a column by the inimitable Balint Szlanko about proposals by Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party to establish voter registration and to eliminate state funding for political parties in Hungary.
Szlanko worries, reasonably, that registration will further depress Hungary’s already embarrassingly low voter turnout numbers – according to the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, barely 31 percent of registered voters cast ballots in the second round of 2010′s parliamentary elections. A good analysis I came across points out flaws in the proposal but also offers reasons why it may backfire on Fidesz – though they are reasons not likely to bring our columnist any comfort.
First, Hungary has resident registration, which seems to be working fine as a basis for creating voter rolls, according to the Political Capital and Social Development Institute. It’s not broke, so why are they fixing it?
Second, the institute’s information suggests that the proposal would require registration one or two months before elections, which would simply eliminate a lot of people who are not thinking that far ahead. In most of the United States and in the United Kingdom, voter registration deadlines are days or weeks before an election, not months.
Third, although Fidesz has seen its support dwindle, and this proposal would likely depress turnout, the institute says Orban’s party still knows how to get out its voters. It notes that “Fidesz has not lost any by-election where the voter turnout was low since the early 2000s.”
But here’s the other shoe: Jobbik, the scary far-right party, enjoys the support of enough well-off, educated people (you read that right) – the kind who are going to be sure to register in time – to see its hand strengthened, too. “What is more, Jobbik now possesses an organizational structure that, from several aspects, matches that of Fidesz,” the analysis reads.
Further, less-committed Fidesz voters might be infected by a sense of apathy, while those angry at Orban’s overreach might be extra motivated to register and vote. That’s really the only bit of analysis here that is heartening to either a critic of Orban or a fan of democracy.
It’s not exactly a hopeful or inspiring picture. Just a somewhat more muddled one than the notion that voter registration is a slam-dunk for Fidesz. And maybe that’s the best we can get.
Image from a video by AFP.
November 22nd, 2012
2 Comments at "Voter Registration in Hungary: Because Turnout Isn’t Low Enough"
just a comment about ” according to the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, barely 31 percent of registered voters cast ballots in the second round of 2010′s parliamentary elections.”
it is true, but is has to be noticed, that the election system of hungary is complicated, and in the second round there are just individual canditates, you can’t vote to the list, and the rule is: if
in the first round the individual candidate get more the 50%+1 of the whole vote—> there is not going to be a second round.
And many fidesz candidate get more the 50% in the first round…, so this is the reason of the extremely low voters.
in the first round 46% participate on the poll, what is still not to many, indeed.
I have no argument with this, I merely want to point out that second-round results in Hungary can be misleading because only those seats are contested in the second round that didn’t declare a winner in the first one. So while 31 per cent may seem very low, it doesn’t necessarily mean that overall turnout at the election was low. In fact, in 2010, first-round turnout was 64 per cent which isn’t that bad. I will still argue that turnout is low by developed-country standards, but the 31 per cent figure is misleading.
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