The review of strategies to promote participation in elections

 Majlis Research Center reviewed in a report "strategies to promote participation in elections in Canada, Britain, France, Norway, and Bulgaria."
According to the Public Relations Office, over the past few decades, turnout in elections has declined over the world and this issue has concerned governments, institutions which hold elections, and citizens of countries, the Office of Political Studies said.
 According to the report, concern arises that the turnout is always considered one of the foundations of democratic system and therefore reduce the participation in the elections could jeopardize the legitimacy of democratic system.
 Different countries are trying to resort different methods to encourage their citizens to participate in elections, the report said.
 The factors influencing the level of participation in elections are in two categories, the report stated. Environmental and systematic factors and individual and social factors are also influencing factors, the report added.
 Accordingly, environmental factors are divided into two several categories: citizens to know how much elections is influencing, competitiveness of elections, the nature of party system, and the amount of elections expenses.
 Individual and social factors include: age, religion, education, interest rate in policy and interdependence of individuals to political parties, and peoples' perception about the effectiveness politically.
 Next, with a case study on some countries the report noted that in Canada increased the participation through student voting, in Britain increased participation by increasing the importance of policy for citizens, in France the participation is increased by convincing citizens about the importance of voting, and in Norway and Bulgaria encouraged citizens to participate in elections by granting financial incentives.
 Finally, results of these plans show plans that focus on citizens' education and increasing their electoral awareness have been got more success and long-term positive results than plans that focus solely on financial incentives, the office concluded. (The full text of the report is attached.)

Tags

Elections, Participation, Strategy