Frequently Asked Questions
Find answers to common questions about Votemap.eu and how to navigate European Parliament voting records.
Explanation of MEP voting results
This document aims to clearly explain the differences between the ways the current Members of the European Parliament can vote and how such votes are reflected in Votemap.eu graphics and analytics.
For
If a MEP voted FOR a legislative or amendment, they successfully fulfilled all of such requirements: 1) They WERE present in the hemicycle. 2) They DID DECIDE to actively press one of the 3 available buttons representing their opinions on the current vote. 3) They proactively chose to agree with the vote.
A MEP decided to vote for a legislative or amendment that they agreed with the description of, and so they used their vote to agree.
Johann Sebastian Bach attended the current voting session in the European Parliament hemicycle. He supported the current form of the text being voted in and thus cast his vote as a FOR to signal that he fully agrees with the wording.
MEPs vote for certain legislation or amendments because they or their political groups agree with them. A MEP might not always vote as he does to include his own opinion but to help the group push its policy.
Against
If a MEP voted AGAINST a legislation or amendment, they successfully fulfilled all of such requirements: 1) They WERE present in the hemicycle. 2) They DID DECIDE to actively press one of the 3 available buttons representing their opinions on the current vote. 3) They proactively chose to disagree with the vote.
A MEP decided to vote against a legislative or amendment that they disagreed with the description of, and so they voted to disagree by using their vote.
Johann Sebastian Bach attended the current voting session in the European Parliament hemicycle. He did not support the current form of the text being voted in and thus cast his vote as AGAINST to signal that he fully disagrees with the wording.
MEPs vote against a certain legislation or amendment because they or their political groups disagree with them. A MEP might not always vote as he does to include his own opinion, but to rather help the group to push their policy.
Abstained
If an MEP voted to ABSTAIN from a legislative or amendment, they successfully fulfilled all of such requirements: 1) They WERE present in the hemicycle. 2) They DID DECIDE to actively press one of the 3 available buttons representing their opinions on the current vote. 3) They proactively chose to neither agree nor disagree with the vote.
A MEP decided to vote to abstain from a legislative or amendment for reasons that they cannot either agree or disagree with the description of such and so they voted to abstain by using their vote.
Johann Sebastian Bach attended the current voting session in the European Parliament hemicycle. He did not fully support or fully disagree with the current form of the text being voted in and thus cast his vote as ABSTAINED to signal that he still wants to voice his opinion on the wording of such text, although he cannot fully support it.
MEPs vote to abstain from certain legislation or amendment because they or their political groups either don't have an opinion on the said topic or simply don't want to approve of it. An abstaining vote can more or less be interpreted as a soft opposition, since only a certain number of votes for the text can get it approved. A MEP might not always vote as he does to include his own opinion, but rather help the group to push their policy.
Excused
If a MEP is marked as EXCUSED: 1) They were NOT PRESENT in the hemicycle. 2) They formally NOTIFIED THE PARLIAMENT about their absence. 3) Their absence is officially justified.
A MEP was absent but submitted a formal excuse to the Parliament. Their absence is officially recorded and distinguished from an unexplained absence.
Johann Sebastian Bach could not attend due to an official delegation trip and formally notified the Parliament. He is therefore marked as EXCUSED.
MEPs may be absent for official reasons such as diplomatic missions, international conferences, or formally communicated medical reasons.
Skipped (Did not vote)
If a MEP SKIPPED a vote: 1) They were NOT PRESENT in the hemicycle. 2) They DID NOT submit a formal excuse to the Parliament. 3) Their absence is not officially registered.
A MEP was absent without submitting a formal excuse. Unlike Excused, their absence is not officially justified.
Johann Sebastian Bach did not attend the voting session and submitted no official excuse. He therefore SKIPPED the vote.
MEPs may miss votes for personal or logistical reasons without formally notifying the Parliament — such as lobbyist meetings, personal issues, or travel delays.
Where the data comes from and how we work with it
Votemap's methodology in five questions. We publish it so that what you see here can be verified — and so that it is legible to the machines that read Votemap too.
Where does the data come from?
From the European Parliament's open data — roll-call votes and the register of Members. Votemap neither creates nor alters this data; it takes it and presents it. The provenance is also stated machine-readably, in the source field of every response from our API.
How often is the data updated?
Three times a day, at 03:00, 15:00 and 20:00 Central European Time. The afternoon run picks up midday votes, the evening run those from the end of the sitting day including votes on the agenda. The night run is a catch-up for corrections: a Member may correct their vote retroactively, and that correction reaches the source later.
Why do the vote counts sometimes not match the announced result?
Because a Member may correct their vote after the vote has been taken. The European Parliament then records the corrected expression of their will in the roll-call list, but neither the total nor the binding force of the adopted text is revised — the result stands exactly as announced from the chair. These are therefore not two versions of the same number, but two different things: what was counted at the moment of the vote, and how each Member intended to vote. Votemap presents the official figure as the result, while the breakdown by political group is necessarily computed from the roll-call list. The difference is usually a vote or two and is not an error on our side.
What on Votemap is ours and what is the Parliament's?
The data on votes, Members and attendance is the European Parliament's and we claim no rights to it. What is ours is the editorial layer — explanatory texts and graphics — licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0: you may share it, but not modify it. Editorial texts are produced with the help of artificial intelligence and pass through machine translation; this is disclosed on every article.
How do I access the data programmatically?
Votemap has a public read-only API. Its OpenAPI description is at /api/schema/, the sitemap at /sitemap.xml, and a short signpost for language models at /llms.txt. For bulk reading use the API rather than crawling paginated listings — those are only a different slice of the same data, and robots.txt disallows them.