Europe Elects was founded in 2014 as a Twitter account. The project quickly rose to prominence as it was the first account that gathered European polling and election data in one spot. In 2017, founder Tobias Gerhard Schminke recruited a team that ran the social media account with him. From there the operations expanded to other social media platforms and formalized into a start-up. Europe Elects states on its website that 100% of the income made is reinvested into the project. The team behind Europe Elects has 36 members from around the globe.
Format
The organization publishes polls done by polling companies in all European countries and its subdivisions in order to show both the level of support for national parties as well as for the European Union in each country. Europe Elects's visualization of the data is unique as it uses standardized labels and colours for national parties of one European Parliament group across national borders. The publications regularly point out the affiliation of national parties with their respective European Parliament groups, which has been adopted by other media outlets over time. Furthermore, overviews of the positions of the single parties and candidates are being provided. Europe Elects publishes on the basis of the collected data a European projection for the European Parliament on a regular basis and shows how the results as if there were elections on that day. At the 2019 European Parliament election Europe Elects had the most precise forecast for the European Parliament. In 2019, the platform launched the Europe Elects Podcast that is published on a bi-weekly basis. Every episode the team contextualizes the latest polling data from Europe and interview experts to talk about the polling data, elections, and democracy in Europe. In the past, the podcast hosted opinion polling analysts like Matt Singh, politicians such as Andreas Nick, or political scientists like Cas Mudde.
Spread and perception
Results published by the organization are frequently cited on Euronews, and it is considered a major media source concerning the European Parliament. Europe Elects is quoted frequently in both European and worldwide publications, is represented in the Centre for European Policy Studies and is a constant source for journalism concerning European politics. The platform has 130,000 followers on its social media and is expanding to other continents.
