Non-voters in Germany 2005 & 2009

Voting behavior. Causes of non-voting. Political attitudes. Political knowledge.

Topics: Political interest; voting for mainstream parties in last federal or state election (recall); frequency of voting for Union parties in federal or state elections (recall); intention to vote and type of voting (polling station, postal vote); current reasons for not voting (open); intention to vote (Sunday question); alternative voting intention; acceptance of electoral norm; satisfaction with democracy; right-left scale: Ranking parties; right-left scale: self-ranking; political knowledge: Recall: top candidate Union 2005; political knowledge: recall: top candidate SPD 2005; political knowledge: Government coalition 2005; reasons for not voting in 2005 (open); rating of parties (scalometer: CDU, CSU, SPD, FDP, LINKE, B90/Grüne, Piraten); with which politician would one which politician would you like to have a drink with; change of party preference in previous elections; self-classification of voter type (regular voter, swing voter, non-voter); Reasons for not voting (prevented, unimportant decision, clear winner, preferred party had no chance, dissatisfaction with own party, parties show that it can´t go on like this, previous party not electable, no differences between parties, satisfied as it is, basically doesn´t go to vote, no politician, to whom one wanted to give the vote, own party clear winner, only Europe is still in charge, does not feel informed, state as a whole does not like, parties and politicians do what they want, better forms to get involved politically, does not feel connected to any party, no party stands up for things that are important); party identification (direction, strength, stability); reasons for current CDU/CSU distance (devout Christian, no home for Christians, no longer advocates the problems of the little people, no longer holds to conservative virtues and values, can no longer believe promises, not currently voting, could vote if there were more politicians like Angela Merkel, divided, no longer represents own political convictions); request: lack of representation of convictions (open).

Non-voters only 2005: participation and type of voting in the 2009 Bundestag election (recall); voting behavior in the 2009 Bundestag election (recall); satisfaction with voting decision in 2009.

Demography: sex; age; highest level of schooling; occupation; profession; religious denomination; frequency of church attendance.

Additionally coded were: political municipality size, BIK, state; region; weighting factors.