Annex 1: Meeting with youth groups
On 1 December 2014 the Committee hosted an informal
roundtable discussion with representatives of several groups that
focus on engaging young people. There were representatives from
the following groups:
· Bite
the Ballot
· British
Youth Council
· Catch
22
· Involver
· NUS
· UpRising
· Youth
Debates
Points raised during the discussion included:
· That
registering to vote needed to be easy at the point of contact;
· There
should be better coordination between Electoral Registration Officers
and educational institutions;
· Needing
to have a National Insurance number to register was a barrier;
· More
could be done to register people in school and tying this in with
citizenship education;
· With
citizenship education, need to link voting with issues to make
people want to register to vote and turn out;
· Experience
of local democratic experience will have a positive impact on
people's engagement with politics;
· Extending
the franchise to 16 and 17 year olds could make engaging with
young people on politics more effective;
· Online
voting and holding elections at the weekend could increase turnout
by young people.
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