European Election 2024: Why is voting taking place over four days?

Now officially, European elections will be held from 6 to 9 June 2024 in 28 EU countries to elect 705 MEPs. So the ballots will be spread out over four days, but the nearly 430 million European voters will no doubt go to the polls multiple times! We explain to you why European elections take place over several days.

Voting days that differ from country to country

This wide range of voting over four days is designed to fit the habits of each voting country. If in France all elections are traditionally organized on Sunday, this is not the case in the entire European Union.

In the Netherlands, for example, the usual voting day is Wednesday. For greater convenience and in order not to distribute the bulletin further, the Dutch government has decided to organize European elections at the national level on Thursday. Thus, they will open the ball on June 6, 2024. Then on Friday there will be Ireland, then on Saturday Latvia, Malta and Slovakia, in line with what is being done for the other elections.

In the Czech Republic, two-day voting

The Czech system is an exception. Indeed, elections usually stretch over two days in a country, regardless of the vote. Offices are first open on Friday from 14:00 to 22:00, then on Saturday from 8:00 to 14:00. The European elections are no exception to this habit and thus will take place (barring a surprise) on 7 and 8 June.

In France we tend to forget it too, but due to the time difference and the arrangement of polling stations for French people living abroad, voting actually starts on Saturday for some of our compatriots. Thus, residents of overseas departments and regions and French residents of the American continent are invited to vote earlier than those on the French mainland.

However, the vast majority of EU countries remain fixed on Sundays. In total, in addition to France, at least twenty countries will come to the elections on June 9: Germany, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Denmark, Spain, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Romania , Slovenia and Sweden.