House of Commons - Voter engagement in the UK: follow up - Political and Constitutional Reform

Voter engagement in the UK: follow up - Political and Constitutional Reform Contents

4 Unequal registration and participation

32. Our interim report considered the unequal levels of both registration and participation at elections across many groups—with young people, private tenants, British citizens living overseas, EU and Commonwealth citizens resident in the UK and members of certain Black and Minority Ethnic groups all being less likely to be registered to vote and to turn out at elections. Many of those who responded to our survey stated their support for efforts to do more to increase registration of people from those groups which are currently under-represented on the electoral register, and we received a significant response from people arguing for more to be done to engage young people with elections.[63] Reaching out to under-represented groups is also an area the Speaker's Commission on Digital Democracy considered, recommending that new online activities should be targeted and should engage specific groups who are not currently engaged in democratic processes.[64] This recommendation very much reflects the approach we set out in our interim report. We do not here restate all of the evidence that we received previously, but have included new comments that have been made to us by respondents to our consultation.

Young people and students

33. Both the National Union of Students and Bite the Ballot told us that they do not agree that young people are apathetic about politics.[65] This confirmed the views that had been expressed to us previously. Bite the Ballot told us that "the teenagers, students and young people we meet care deeply about issues and all have opinions about 'political' issues." Bite the Ballot has said that politicians need to engage with young people and demonstrate that they care about young people's issues, something that has not happened in the past.[66]

People with disabilities

34. Our interim report concluded that there was a particular problem with the accessibility of registration and voting for a large number of people with specific needs resulting from a disability. We recommended that the Government consult with the Electoral Commission, EROs and disability groups and publish clear and stretching proposals setting out how registration and voting will be made more accessible to people with disabilities.[67] The Government has told us that it is "committed to making the electoral system fully accessible for all electors", and stated that in November 2014 it had held meetings with Mencap and the RNIB to identify options for making registration and voting easier for people with disabilities.[68] The Government also stated that "Further work to bring forward proposals to improve the accessibility of the electoral system for disabled people remains ongoing."

35. The Papworth Trust, a charity which supports disabled people, suggested that local authorities should pilot various options to see what would be most helpful to increasing access for disabled people. They told us that polling stations should be made more accessible, options for voting such as online voting should be considered as a means to making it easier for people with disabilities to vote, and work to promote registration by organisations such as Mencap should continue.[69] Dimensions, a charity that supports people with learning disabilities and autism, highlighted that there was a specific issue around understanding the eligibility to vote of people with certain disabilities, and stated that this needed to be clarified.[70] Bite the Ballot drew our attention to a campaign it had run jointly with MDC Trailblazers, a national network of more than 400 young disabled people, looking at access to polling stations. The results of this campaign could inform improvements to accessibility of polling stations in the future.[71]

36. We welcome the actions that the Government has undertaken to identify options for making registration and voting easier for people with disabilities, but we note that these fall short of meeting the recommendation we made that the Government publish clear and stretching proposals setting out how registration and voting will be made more accessible to people with disabilities.

Overseas voters

37. In our interim report we explored levels of voter engagement for British citizens living overseas—who are eligible to vote in general and European Parliament elections for 15 years after they move overseas from the UK—and noted that only 15,818 of the estimated 4.7 to 5.5 million British citizens living overseas were registered to vote.[72] We called on the Government to bring forward a comprehensive plan to increase registration rates for this group.[73] The Government has told us that it "remains committed to maximise registration amongst all groups, including overseas electors and is already working to achieve this ahead of the 2015 General Election."[74] It stated that some measures that had already been introduced, such as online registration and the extension the electoral timetable for UK Parliamentary elections from 17 to 25 days, were particularly helpful to overseas voters. The Government's response to our interim report also stated that "The requirement for overseas electors to have a witness for their application to register has also been removed, which will make it a more straightforward process."

38. A large number of respondents to our consultation called for the abolition of the rule which disenfranchises British citizens who have lived abroad for more than 15 years,[75] a call supported by the evidence we received from the Chairman of the Conservative Party.[76] Arguments made in favour of allowing British citizens overseas to retain their voting rights indefinitely included that policy decisions made in the UK—particularly around issues such as pensions—continued to affect this group, and that many of them were likely to retain a strong attachment to the UK. Conversely, the evidence from the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional and Political Reform stated that it "seems to us irrational in the extreme that an elector who has moved abroad should continue to elect a local MP in the community they have left for up to 15 years thereafter."[77] Measures to remove the 15 year restriction on British citizens living overseas from voting, to create an obligation for the Electoral Commission to identify and facilitate the registration of British citizens living overseas, and to enable such citizens to vote using the internet have recently been proposed in the Overseas Voters Bill, which was debated at Second Reading on 23 January 2015.[78]

39. It was also suggested to us that efforts should be made to contact British citizens living abroad via newspapers and digests that are most likely to reach them, to encourage them to register to vote.[79] New Europeans also told us that the "value of working with voluntary sector organisations and/or their potential reach should not be under-estimated."[80] Although we received evidence to suggest that online registration would be beneficial to British voters living overseas,[81] respondents did state that more needed to be done to publicise eligibility and the process for registering to vote.[82] One specific suggestion was that people could be prompted to register to vote when they applied for a passport.[83] Support was also given to the proposal that overseas voters be sent a ballot paper by e-mail, which could then be printed out and returned by post.[84]

40. The Electoral Commission has run campaigns targeted at overseas voters for a number of years and plans to run one prior to the General Election in May 2015. The Commission told us that its campaign will primarily be online, with some additional media work, and will be targeted at countries where the evidence suggests the highest numbers of UK expatriates reside.[85] The Commission believed that the new system of online registration should make it easier and simpler for eligible overseas electors to register; it intends to register at least 100,000 overseas electors before the registration deadline for participating in the May 2015 general election. The Chairman of the Conservative Party has also told us that in government the Conservatives have made efforts to increase voter engagement of the estimated 5.5 million British citizens living overseas, and in addition stated: "the Prime Minister has pledged to abolish the 15 year rule which disqualifies many British citizens living abroad from voting."[86]

41. The proposal for removing the current 15-year limit on British citizens living overseas from participating in UK elections should be considered as part of a wider package of measures aimed at increasing engagement by this group, as this change would simplify the eligibility criteria and make it easier to promote registration to British citizens no longer resident in the UK.

Citizens of Commonwealth countries and other EU member states

42. In our interim report we considered both levels of engagement of Commonwealth and non-British EU citizens at UK elections, and also specific problems faced by non-British EU citizens in participating at the 2014 European Parliament elections, many of whom had been unable to participate because of confusion around the administrative processes entailed in registering to vote at that election.[87] A number of responses to our consultation highlighted the cumbersome process faced by non-British EU citizens wishing to vote in the UK elections for European Parliament.[88] The Electoral Commission has acknowledged that it is "unacceptable that administrative barriers prevented eligible and engaged electors from participating in [the European Parliament] elections", and told us it had committed to identifying "what can be done to simplify the system and remove unnecessary administrative barriers to participation so that this problem does not affect electors at the next European Parliament elections in 2019."[89] The Government has also told us that the "Cabinet Office plans further discussions with the Electoral Commission and other electoral stakeholders on the registration process for EU citizens to consider ways to simplify the process for EU citizens living in the UK to register to vote at EP and local elections."[90] Both the New European and Dr Susan Collard submitted evidence to us about the data gathered on for which elections non-British EU citizens are registered to vote—to which we referred in our interim report—as adequate data had not been published in the past and it was therefore not possible to compare certain figures.[91] Both witnesses confirmed that the discrepancies in figures did not undermine the need to both do more to increase registration rates for non-British EU citizens, and to simplify the process for such citizens in registering to vote for European Parliament elections.

43. In terms of better enabling engagement by Commonwealth and non-British EU citizens, we recommended that the Electoral Commission should run a specific campaign aimed at Commonwealth citizens and citizens of other EU member states resident in the UK.[92] New Europeans welcomed this recommendation and told us that "A targeted awareness campaign would considerably improve the current situation."[93] The Electoral Commission has said that "specific information relating to the eligibility of non-UK citizens to register and vote in UK elections will be available on aboutmyvote.co.uk by the end of January 2015", and that EU and qualifying Commonwealth citizens resident in the UK will see and benefit from the awareness raised by its public awareness campaigns aimed at under-registered audiences.[94]

44. EU and Commonwealth citizens resident in the UK are amongst the most under-represented groups on the electoral register. We welcome the statements from the Electoral Commission that information specifically for non-UK citizens will be available online, and that they are one of the groups its public awareness campaigns will target. We recommend that the Electoral Commission take active steps to communicate this information directly to those groups to whom it is relevant.

45. We welcome the progress that is being made on considering how arrangements for non-British EU citizens participating at European Parliament elections can be simplified, and trust this will be resolved well before the 2019 elections.

Conclusion

46. We reaffirm the conclusions and recommendations from chapter 5 of our interim report concerning combatting unequal levels of voter registration and participation at elections. We hope the additional evidence we have received and the further recommendations we have made on these points, as set out above, can inform progress on these issues.

63 Written evidence from John Hemming [PVE 10], Barry E Thomas [PVE 20], Brent Council [PVE 49], Nigel Siederer [PVE 65], Peter Davidson [PVE 66], Jackie Terry [PVE 70], Association of Electoral Administrators [PVE 72], the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional and Political Reform [PVE 106] Back

64 Open Up!, Speaker's Commission on Digital Democracy, January 2014 Back

65 Written evidence from Bite the Ballot [PVE 115], National Union Students [PVE 117] Back

66 Written evidence from Bite the Ballot [PVE 115] Back

67 Voter engagement in the UK, para 84 Back

68 Voter engagement in the UK: Government Response to the Committee's Fourth Report of Session 2014-15, page 5 Back

69 Written evidence from the Papworth Trust [PVE 64] Back

70 Written evidence from Dimensions [PVE 109] Back

71 Written evidence from Bite the Ballot [PVE 115] Back

72 Voter engagement in the UK, para 85 Back

73 Voter engagement in the UK, para 90 Back

74 Voter engagement in the UK: Government Response to the Committee's Fourth Report of Session 2014-15, page 6 Back