Parties troubled by abstention of young people

With the June 9 European elections looming, Greek political parties are concerned about the high rate of abstention of young people aged 17-30, after an analysis of the qualitative data of the postal vote. 

Indicatively, in the two major urban centers of Attica and Thessaloniki, a total of 59,468 voters have registered, of whom only about 10,000 are young people, less than 17%.

Given that many of the younger citizens are either leaving to work on the islands, or will be working within Attica as the summer season has begun, or will choose the beach, the fact that they have not made use of the postal vote raises legitimate concerns about a high turnout of these age groups in the European elections. 

A total of 202,556 voters from all over the world will vote by postal vote, of whom 153,322 are in Greece. Considering that this is the first time this project has been implemented, in elections that traditionally have a low turnout, the government and the responsible Ministry of Interior, which oversees postal voting, have every reason to be pleased. But this satisfaction has been tempered by the lukewarm participation of young people. 

Attica has 46,548 of Greece’s 153,322 postal voters. This basically means that Attica, the country’s largest geographical district, which covers over half of Greece, accounts for only 30.5% of postal vote registrations. In Attica, the 17-30 age group accounts for 16.9% of the population, which equates to 7,000-8,000 voters. 

In Thessaloniki, a total of 12,920 people declared that they would cast their ballot by postal vote, corresponding to 8.43% of those registered nationwide. This percentage is also lower than the population of Thessaloniki nationwide, which is over 10%. In the individual midterm analysis, the 17-30s who will vote by postal vote number between 2,000 and 3,000 voters.