Tingsten’s law of dispersion states that in elections with low voter turnout, social dispersion is greater than in elections with high voter turnout. According to this hypothesis, European elections, considered to be second-order elections, should be predestined for a strong social bias. But is the social imbalance in European elections actually greater than in national parliamentary elections? To answer this question, two OLS (Ordinary Least Squares) models were calculated that analyse voter turnout in Austria and France at the municipal level. While the results for Austria support Tingsten’s hypothesis, the results for France point to a stronger social dispersion during the national parliamentary election. This suggests that the relationship between voter turnout and social dispersion may be more complex than Tingsten assumed, and that the national context can play a decisive role.