This week, the Telegraph has published an article debating the merits of compulsory voting. Partly inspired by the approaching first anniversary of the launch of the Campaign for Compulsory Voting, the Telegraph’s research shows that “at least half of UK adults support compulsory voting a range of public votes and elections”.

The argument is that in the face of an ever-decreasing rate of turnout at general elections – in 2024 the turnout rate was the second lowest on record at 59.5% – fining those who don’t participate is a neat solution to a complex problem.

However, before frogmarching British citizens to the ballot box, should we not be asking the more prescient question of why people are disengaged in the first place?

Low voter turnout isn’t the fault of British citizens. It’s the end result of insisting on using a voting system which isn’t responsive, representative, or often worth engaging with from the voter’s perspective.

The real issue: a system that doesn’t work for us

We know that Westminster’s voting system leaves millions of us left out of the decision-making process because our votes don’t count. If you live in one of the few remaining safe seats, the result of whatever election is being held is usually a foregone conclusion. If it’s a marginal seat, then we are forced to vote tactically rather than with our hearts in order ‘to keep the other guys out’.

In the 2024 election, we found that 57.8% of all votes cast did not have any impact on the political make-up of parliament.

If voters feel like their vote doesn’t make any difference, then not taking time out of their busy lives to engage could sadly be seen as a rational response. It doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t care; they’re just being pragmatic.

Compulsory voting would be treating a symptom and not a cause of this disengagement. It would force people to participate in a system that many feel they are shut out of anyway. Rather than shifting the blame on to the public for not voting, politicians need to look at whether those votes actually matter.

A deeper solution to a serious problem

Instead of compelling us to participate in an election, politicians should focus on earning our participation.

The Telegraph article frequently references compulsory voting in Australia. What they don’t mention is that neither the Australian Senate nor House of Representatives uses First Past the Post. The Senate uses the proportional Single Transferable Vote and the House of Representatives the Alternative Vote.

With a proportional system, the vast majority of voters would have an impact on the make-up of parliament. As a result, we could have a Parliament better representing the diversity of British political opinion.

Research has shown that in countries using more proportional voting systems there is higher turnout as, amongst other reasons, voters feel their vote actually carries weight.

If you want Brits to turn up to the ballot box, they need a reason to believe their voice matters.

The risk of getting compulsory voting wrong (and right)

If compulsory voting is introduced in the UK without any major reforms, there would be a high risk of voters resenting being forced to participate in a system that doesn’t reflect what they think. Given that trust in politics is already at a record low, why push that any further?

In Australia, the government has a deal with voters – voting is compulsory, but the government goes out of its way to make it easy to vote and for every vote to have an impact.

Australian voters can go to early voting centres before polling day; cast postal votes; mobile polling stations go to care homes and remote areas; blind people can vote by phone; and voters can go to any polling station in their state or to interstate voting centres if they are out of their home state. If they are abroad, they can vote by post or at Australian embassies in person.

These are all interesting ideas without compulsory voting, but to bring in compulsory voting without them would disproportionately penalise those already under pressure. For our frontline workers – carers, emergency service workers, military personnel, doctors and nurses – shift patterns already create challenges in voting with our limited polling hours.

Focusing on fixing things, not forcing them

Rather than blaming people for not voting, politicians need to give them something worth voting in. This is possible through seriously looking at reforms to our democratic system, including a change to the voting system.

Compulsory voting may be a quick fix to boost turnout, but it doesn’t get to the heart of the issue and create meaningful participation in our elections; it just forces it.

For a stronger democracy, we must fix the system; the participation will follow.

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Written by Thomas Worth

In the months leading up to elections, voters are often inundated with all sorts of literature from political parties and candidates. From leaflets to surveys, or even sudoku puzzles, political parties use campaign literature to vie for our votes. It is important for the health of our democratic process that parties and candidates are able to communicate with voters, and many people will value the opportunity to hear from those who are seeking their votes. However, other people may be less keen to hear from parties or, more likely, particular parties.

When you consider that during the 2024 General Election campaign alone, Royal Mail delivered 184 million freepost leaflets from candidates. And that this figure doesn’t take into account those delivered by the candidates and parties themselves, you begin to see why some people would rather not have their letter boxes clogged up.

The Electoral Register

So how do political parties and candidates find out where to send their campaign literature? The answer is the Electoral Register, which contains the names and addresses of people who are registered to vote. There are two versions of the Electoral Register, those being the Full Register and the Open Register.

The Full Register includes the names and addresses of everyone who has registered to vote. Aside from registering to vote anonymously for those who are vulnerable, there is no way to opt out of this if you are registered to vote. This version of the register is not publicly available.

Meanwhile, the Open Register is a version of the Register that is available for a fee to any person, business or organisation. Being on this register may be how you end up with plenty of junk mail through your door! When registering to vote, you can opt out of the Open Register, although the default option when registering is to be on this version of the register.

When it comes to elections, though, it is the Full Register that dictates whether parties will contact you through direct deliveries. This is because political parties, candidates and registered campaigners are entitled to receive the latest copy of the Full Register when it comes to election time. Importantly, they are also entitled to receive a ‘marked’ register which highlights what previous elections people have voted in, although of course not who they have voted for, allowing them to better target voters.

Write to the parties, but don’t hold your breath

For those who want to stop leaflets from coming through their door, an option is to write to the political parties to tell them to stop sending post personally addressed to them. The issue here is that it is rarely the national party that is sending the literature, it will be the local branch of the party, so you would need to contact them as well. Even then, this may not prevent the delivery of unaddressed leaflets that are delivered to all households in the area, either by local volunteers or paid delivery firms. Parties are also not obliged to stop sending you literature through Freepost mailing they may be entitled to at election times.

Another logical step would be to block junk mail with Royal Mail. However, the Freepost leaflets delivered by Royal Mail on behalf of candidates are not classified as junk mail. Therefore, taking this step, which would be great if you wanted to stop window cleaning leaflets, won’t necessarily prevent campaign literature from coming through your letterbox, especially as unaddressed leaflets from political parties are often not delivered by Royal Mail.

Junk mail and the Representation of the People Bill

With the imminent passage of the Representation of the People Bill, the way we get onto the Electoral Register is likely to change. This bill aims to improve our democracy by introducing votes at 16, changing political finance rules and expanding the forms of recognised voter ID. Part of the bill involves exploring Automatic Voter Registration which is likely to lead to changes in the process of registering to vote. In relation to campaign literature the most important change is the shift around the Open Register.

Instead of the current system, where we have to opt out of the Open Register, changes in the Representation of the People Bill mean that when registering people will automatically not appear in the Open register and would have to opt-in if they wanted to. The removal of this presumption means that voters will have increased control over their own personal data all while still being able to play their part in the democratic process.

While this won’t mean that you will receive less campaign literature from parties or candidates, it may mean that you are potentially likely to receive less junk mail, although we won’t hold our breath yet!

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Written by Thomas Worth

While the focus has been on the 30 councils who saw their elections delayed and then undelayed at short notice, it might be easy to miss some of the positive changes coming up for local elections. The 2026 local elections look promising when it comes to new democratic innovations.

The government has partnered with 4 local authorities across the country to launch flexible voting pilots. These councils, Cambridge, Milton Keynes, North Hertfordshire and Tunbridge Wells, will allow voters to try out new ways to cast their ballots, in schemes designed to inform future decisions about how we all vote.

Early voting trials

For people with busy lives or complex caring responsibilities, it can be hard to get to the polling station. What if there were more options?

For Cambridge, North Hertfordshire and Tunbridge Wells, this will take the form of early voting in hubs. This means that voters will have the option to go to a central hub, rather than their assigned polling station, and will be able to cast their vote in the days preceding election day on Thursday, 7th May.

This will include the weekend, allowing voters to cast their ballot at a time that fits their schedule. In town picking up some shopping? Why not pop in and cast your ballot. The hubs themselves will take the form of centrally located notable buildings in the local area, for example, the Guildhall in Cambridge.

This is not the first time similar schemes have been piloted in the UK. In May 2022, Wales piloted early voting, with a report into the findings of the pilot being published a few months later. The report found promising results with 1.5% of voters turning out early in Bridgend, where 20 polling stations allowed early voting in traditionally low turnout wards.

Outside of the UK, early voting is a common practice. In fact, the government identifies 60 countries in which some voters are allowed to vote before election day. Recent years have shown how impactful early voting can be in terms of turnout, giving voters a better chance to have their say in crucial elections.

In Canada, the 2025 Federal Election saw unprecedented levels of early voting, with 7.3 million people voting in advance out of the 19.6 million who voted. This election also saw a large increase in turnout, helped by the flexibility afforded to voters.

Findings from elections in New Zealand also follow a similar pattern. A study of early voting in the 2017 New Zealand election found that early voting increased turnout by 7.6%. Crucially, early voting was found to be most effective in increasing turnout in areas with ‘low turnout culture’, with the study concluding that early voting is one way in helping to attract population groups that do not vote.

New central voting locations

In Milton Keynes, the scheme will also take the form of a central voting hub where voters can choose to vote in the city’s main shopping centre. However, they will not be able to vote in advance of election day.

Say you were planning on voting on the way into town, but are delayed? Residents of Milton Keynes will have the option to pop out at lunch and vote centrally or try and vote at their normal polling station on the way home.

This pilot will give voters, who live busy modern lives, the opportunity to have their say in a more convenient and accessible way, something the ERS has called for in the past.

Voting Should Fit Around our Modern Lives

This, therefore, is an important pilot, with the government itself acknowledging that the way we vote at the polling booth has not changed since 1872. The schemes being trialled better reflect the realities of modern living and will give voters a better chance to engage with democracy. Importantly, similar schemes have already achieved positive results both at home and abroad and will help to improve the health of our democracy if rolled out more widely.

While these pilots are welcome, it is crucial that the government engages with the findings of the report, due to be published in the latter half of 2026. Similar pilots occurred from 2000 to 2007, including trials of electronic voting and early voting. After years of trials, the government ultimately failed to decide on a future direction for early voting. Instead, they merely acknowledged the call from the Electoral Commission for it to come to a decision about implementing early voting and delayed a decision.

While these trials may be limited this year, we hope that in the future, both early and hub voting will be rolled out more widely across the UK so that voters are given more opportunities to play their part in the democratic process. Ultimately, voting needs to be built around people’s lives; time constraints should not prevent people from exercising their democratic right.

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One year on from the General Election and we are eagerly awaiting the government’s Elections Bill, expected to be tabled in the next session of this parliament.

The bill is likely to contain measures, promised in the manifesto, on extending the franchise to 16 and 17 year olds, improving voter registration and strengthening the rules around political donations.

We would welcome these changes. Reforms to ensure everyone can access their vote and to reduce the influence of money in our politics cannot come soon enough.

With just over half of eligible voters participating in last year’s General Election, the need for bold, effective change is clear. The Elections Bill offers a real opportunity to upgrade our electoral arrangements and begin to address these problems – and it must not be wasted.

Here’s what we believe the Elections Bill must include to strengthen our democracy:

Votes at 16

Research shows that the earlier someone is engaged in a democratic process the more likely they are to continue to engage throughout their life. Lowering the voting age to 16 and strengthening citizenship education can help nurture more active citizens for the future health of our democracy. 16 and 17 year olds in Scotland and Wales can already vote in national and local elections and where people see votes at 16 in action, they don’t want to go back.

Automatic Voter Registration

Our estimates have found that up to 7.6 million eligible voters are missing from the electoral registers in England and Wales. Numbers vary across constituencies but in the worst areas, up to a fifth of potential voters may not be on the register. Automatic registration would see electoral administrators populate the register from existing data sources before confirming with voters and ensure fewer voters miss out on their chance to participate.

Constituency boundaries

One of the impacts of incomplete electoral rolls is that, with parliamentary boundaries drawn on the basis of registered electors, constituency boundaries are not truly representative of their populations and not all citizens or eligible electors are counted. We support boundaries being based on more accurate data to truly reflect constituency size.

Repeal Voter ID rules

Since the introduction of voter ID, over 40,000 potential voters have been turned away from polling stations and not returned. And that’s just those we know about. Many more have stayed at home and for some voters, such as those with a disability, the scheme has had a greater impact.  Voter ID is putting up another barrier to people who are already likely to be less engaged in democracy and may already find it difficult to participate. This disproportionate and unnecessary policy should be scrapped. If the Voter ID requirement is not removed, significant changes should be made, such as expanding the types of accepted ID and allowing for declarations on the day.

Cleaning up political finance

A fifth of all major political donations in the two decades between 2001 and 2021 came from just 10 individuals. With party finding so reliant on so few there is a real risk that our politics can be bought by the highest bidder. We need a level playing field, where all voters feel they have a stake in our democracy not just those with the deepest pockets. There is also much that can be done to improve transparency and protect our democracy from foreign funding such as introducing a risk-based ‘know-your-donor’ policy; closing the loopholes around donations from unincorporated associations and improving transparency on donations and spending.

Strengthen enforcement

For any rules to be effective, we need effective enforcement and monitoring. We are strongly opposed to ministerial involvement in setting the Electoral Commission’s strategy as part of the ‘Strategy and Policy Statement’ introduced in the Elections Act 2022. The Electoral Commission should have the powers it needs to obtain and share information to ensure compliance and there should be an increase in the maximum fine it is able to levy.

Fair votes

Ultimately addressing disengagement and disempowerment means giving voice to voters and to their local communities and this cannot happen without also making changes at Westminster. After the most disproportional election in British electoral history, it is time our political system valued every vote and every voter in every part of the country and moved to a proportional electoral system.

For Mayors too, moving from a preferential system to FPTP was a huge mistake in the last Elections Bill and one that could be righted with a move back to the Supplementary Vote (SV) or to the Alternative Vote (AV).

We need to rebuild our democracy to put it on stronger foundations for the future and ensure everyone can participate. The Elections Bill is an opportunity to begin this process and we will be calling on the government to ensure it does just that.

A key moment to improve our democracy

This Elections Bill represents a welcome opportunity to modernise our democracy and restore public confidence in the political process. By expanding participation, improving transparency, and strengthening oversight, the government can help ensure that our elections are fair, inclusive, and fit for the 21st century.

But reforms on paper are only the beginning – what matters is meaningful action. As the Bill moves through Parliament, we’ll be watching closely to ensure it delivers on its promises and truly puts voters at the heart of our democracy.

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As momentum builds for electoral reform, your support is more important than ever. Our members support our work in parliament like this, as well as in the press and online – making the case, and backing it up – for how we can fix Westminster’s broken system.

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In May’s local elections, four areas in Wales trialled a different way of voting – allowing people to cast their vote before election day. As well as polling stations being open on the Thursday 5 May election day there were also a range of places where people could cast their vote early – either the previous weekend or on the Tuesday or Wednesday before election day.

The Welsh early voting pilots

Those four places each trialled this in a slightly different way:

In Blaenau Gwent the council opened the Ebbw Vale Learning Zone as an advanced polling station for everyone in the county on the Tuesday and Wednesday before the election, including eligible students studying there.

In Bridgend over 20 polling stations in low turnout wards were open for advance voting on the Tuesday and Wednesday before the election. A new polling station was also created in Cynffig Comprehensive School where eligible students could cast their vote on the Tuesday before the election.

In Caerphilly any eligible resident of the county could vote in the Council headquarters in Ystrad Mynach on the weekend before the election.

Similarly in Torfaen the council offices at Pontypool were open the weekend before the election for any resident to cast their vote.

Electoral Commission’s evaluation of Welsh early voting pilots

This week the Electoral Commission’s evaluation of these pilots was published, reviewing how these trials went. While this was only a first, and relatively small trial the early indications are that the pilots went well.

For many, whether the trials could work was a real test, with the advanced voting and the ability for residents of anywhere in the authority to vote in a polling station outside their ward posing a challenge to administrators. This required the introduction of digital registers, an online system where polling station staff could tick off who had turned out to vote in advance.

There were also questions over whether voters would find the experience accessible but the report found no notable issues on the advance voting days or on Thursday 5 May and that the voters who did take part were satisfied with their experience.

The commission surveyed voters who had turned out in advance, and although the sample size was small, over three-quarters (77%) said they would be very likely to vote early again if there was an opportunity to do so and a further 15% said they would be quite likely to take advantage of early voting in future.

These were only small and localised pilots and, as expected, the turnout was relatively low. Indeed the Counsel General, Mick Antoniw, responded to the evaluation on Tuesday in a written statement, saying “As expected, the pilots did not increase turnout dramatically but demonstrated that flexible and more convenient ways of voting can be provided securely and with voters’ confidence”.

Promising results from the pilots

In spite of this low turnout there are a couple of promising results within the evaluation. In areas where a single polling station was open for advanced voting, 0.2%-0.3% of registered voters cast their votes in advance. But in Bridgend, where over 20 polling stations in low turnout wards were open, turnout was 5 times this amount at 1.5%.

There are also positive signs from Bridgend with a polling station open for the first time in a comprehensive school for eligible students to vote. This follows the extension of the franchise to 16 and 17 year olds in Wales. In that school 18% of eligible voters cast their vote early.

ERS Cymru has long called for pilots on voting in different places and on different days and these four pilots demonstrate both the challenges and opportunities of doing democracy a little bit differently. While small, they have shown that the model can work logistically and give us an indication of the challenges in staffing and resources that will need to be met.

We have to accept that there is no magic bullet to low turnout but that a range of measures will likely be needed. Making voting more accessible has a part to play in that. The indication that a polling station in a school has had a higher turnout than expected is a promising one. With 16 and 17 year olds able to vote, we must endeavour to bring voting to young people directly. Voting is a habit and if we can reach young people in schools and make it easy for them to vote we can begin to create that habit.

In addition to making voting more accessible, we need to be looking at removing other barriers, such as improving voter communications, introducing automatic registration for voters and not introducing voter ID. It is notable that in Cynffig Comprehensive School a fifth of eligible voters said they were not registered.

Following the publication of the evaluation of the pilots the Counsel General Mick Antoniw has responded positively, saying “The learning from the pilots and the evaluation will be used to inform longer term improvements to the way people vote and to help reduce the democratic deficit. I look forward to consulting on our proposals in the coming months.” This consultation is to be welcomed and we hope that at the next Senedd and local elections in 2026 and 2027 advanced voting will be an option for all eligible voters.

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This week the Welsh Government announced an exciting series of pilots on flexible voting – trialling, for the first time, new ways to make it easier for Welsh voters to access the ballot box. 

Since 1931 every UK General Election has been held on a Thursday and typically local elections and elections to our devolved parliaments and administrations have followed suit. There are a number of reasons for this, including one commonly cited being that it was traditionally market day in many towns. Yet, just because something has traditionally been done one way doesn’t mean that this is necessarily the right way to do it now.

Now four local authorities in Wales will be using the local elections in May to trial new ways for voters to access the ballot box. The pilots will be testing whether voting on different days and in different places might make it easier for people to vote. 

Early voting trials in Wales

In Blaenau Gwent, the Ebbw Vale Learning Zone (a local college) will be used as an advanced polling station for early voting on the Tuesday and Wednesday ahead of the election, which all residents in the county will be able to access. This will include students of the college, who are above the age of 16. 

In Bridgend, some wards where there has traditionally been low turnout will be given the option to vote early. In these areas polling stations will be open on the Tuesday and Wednesday before election day. A school in the area will also have an advance polling station where students will be able to vote. 

Weekend voting in Caerphilly and Torfaen

In both Caerphilly and Torfaen council offices in Ystrad Mynach and Pontypool will be used as an advance polling station for all residents of the county on the weekend before election day.

Early voting and weekend voting are common in democracies around the world, so it will be interesting to see how they work for Wales.

These pilots herald an exciting development for Welsh democracy, trialling ideas that ERS Cymru has long called for.  

Just last year we saw the franchise in Wales extended for the first time for Senedd elections, allowing every resident of Wales above the age of 16 to cast their vote. This now also applies to local elections meaning 16 and 17 year olds and all foreign nationals resident in Wales will be able to cast their vote in May. 

But we know that extending the franchise alone doesn’t guarantee that people will turn up to vote. To do that we need to look at removing barriers from our democracy and creating opportunities that make it easier for people to vote.

It’s not just the newly enfranchised who need encouragement to vote either. At the last local elections in 2017 turnout was 41%. Turnout for Senedd elections has never hit 50%. Overhauling and improving Welsh democracy is a big task. 

We know that we have to do more to tackle Wales’ democratic deficit and the pilots look set to be the first step in a big emphasis on this within Wales. The Counsel General, Mick Antoniw, spoke about this at a Fair Vote fringe at Welsh Labour conference recently. He made the point that the pilots would play a role in showing the mechanics of how things like early voting and digital registers might work, ahead of more detailed legislation next year. 

These flexible voting pilots could be part of that picture, alongside better political education in schools and stronger public information campaigns. This feels like a really exciting time for innovation in our elections, bringing democracy much closer to where it should be in 2022. 

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In the past two weeks, the flaws of the US electoral system have become plain for all to see.

As the dust slowly settles, it’s worth looking at some results that aren’t the presidential race.

In many cases it’s up to the individual states to choose how to run their elections, and some took the chance this time to become more democratic and engaging, and their results more representative.

Towards fairer elections

Five US cities which held referendums to implement ranked choice voting (RCV) have backed the shift, sometimes with large majorities. One of which, Albany, has moved to STV. RCV is a method of voting that allows voters the option to rank candidates in order of preference e.g. first choice, second choice, third choice and so on.

RCV means that the winning candidate has broad support, as the winner must secure over 50% backing in the final round. When there is only one potential winner, this is the ideal voting system, reducing wasted votes and eliminating the problem of ‘spoiler candidates’ supposedly splitting the vote.

Ending the Electoral College

The National Popular Vote Compact has added the state of Colorado to its list of states bidding to side-line the Electoral College system.

States who back the compact agree to assign their presidential ‘electors’ – the individuals nominated by states to pick the president – to the candidate who secures the popular vote nationally. This bypasses the undemocratic Electoral College in the election of the president.

In order to go into effect, the Compact requires states with a total of 270 Electoral College votes –  the majority of electors – to be signed up, enough to control the outcome of the election. Currently, the Compact has now been signed by states collectively representing 196 Electoral College votes, which is 74 short of the 270 needed for a presidential victory.

Fair seat boundaries

The practice of ‘gerrymandering’ – an unfair political tactic that has been used by both major parties for their benefit – was weakened in Virginia last week, when voters approved a constitutional amendment that would create a bipartisan redistricting commission.

Partisan redistricting, or gerrymandering, is a way of establishing a one-sided political advantage by manipulating district boundaries. For instance, in North Carolina, the federal courts recently found that the Republican party unconstitutionally crowded traditionally Democratic black voters into a handful of districts, in order to favour the Republican vote. This is a real problem under First Past the Post where votes cast over the margin needed to win are effectively ignored: meaning the incentive is to crowd all your opponents’ voters into concentrated seats, or split them out thinly among your voters.

The introduction of a bipartisan redistricting commission to tackle this issue aims to stop the party in charge from giving themselves an unfair advantage. While a step in the right direction, proportional representation could have an even bigger impact.

Expanding Voting Rights

In California, approximately 50,000 people were re-enfranchised, as they were given back their right to vote. A proposition to amend the Californian state constitution to allow prisoners on parole who meet state guidelines the right to vote was passed in a state-wide vote. The state is also expected to make an initial investment in voter registration to ensure they can sign up.

Previously, activists for this proposition argued that “Black and Latinx individuals are both disproportionately incarcerated and disenfranchised by the current state voting restrictions”. Closer to home, Scotland recently enacted similar legislation.

Fairer Campaign Finance

In Oregon, one of just five states that sets no limits on the amount of money candidates are able to receive from donors, a historic vote has welcomed the introduction of campaign finance regulation.

The measure changes the constitution to allow restrictions on contributions and spending

The measure also permitted rules requiring campaigns to be open about how political ads are funded.

Lessons for Britain

These positive reforms show what democracy is something that is fought for. Here in the UK, we can see the different ways our democracy is under threat: from a warped voting system to plans to introduce mandatory voter ID at elections – a plan that seems to be fresh out of the US voter suppression playbook.

But much like campaigners in the US, we know that positive changes can be won too – and what is happening right now across the pond should encourage the fight for a better democracy here.

By Akash Thiara, a Placement Student with the Electoral Reform Society from the University of Nottingham.

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The government is being urged to bring in the ‘missing millions’ of unregistered voters, ahead of a vote on the issue on Tuesday.

An amendment to the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill, passed by the House of Lords in October, warns that the new parliamentary constituencies will fail to reflect their communities unless action is taken to close a ‘staggering’ registration gap.

As it stands, the new constituency boundaries will not take into account roughly nine million people who aren’t on the register. Renters and BAME people are also highly disadvantaged by this, as seats are skewed towards demographics with higher registration rates. It means MPs in areas with high youth populations, for example, have to represent many more people than those without.

Tuesday’s amendment – backed by the Electoral Reform Society, British Youth Council, National Youth Organisation, Young Citizens and more – would ensure the government sets out an action plan to bring in the millions of people, particularly young people, who are currently missing from the electoral roll. It calls for moves towards automatic registration, such as registering people when they receive their National Insurance numbers.

Since the introduction of Individual Electoral Registration (IER) in 2014, the completeness of electoral registers has fallen among attainers (16 and 17-year olds who will reach electoral age within the life of the register).

There were 471,000 attainers on the registers in 2013, but this figure had fallen to 306,000 by 2019. Registration rates for eligible 16 and 17-year olds were estimated to be just 25% in 2018 – a drop from 45% in 2015. In contrast, a whopping 94% of those aged 65+ were estimated to be registered.

Young people are likely to be highly under-counted when constituency boundaries are drawn up. Registration rates are low among young people across the board. This creates a negative cycle, where young people do not join the register, and are subsequently more ‘ignorable’ by public figures.

Commenting on the amendment, Dr Jess Garland, Director of Policy and Research at the ERS, said:  “Simple changes like adding people to the private electoral register when they receive their National Insurance details would go a long way over time to closing Britain’s shocking registration gap.

“Without simple but vital reforms, parliamentary constituencies will exclude swathes of young people when they’re drawn up. There are many things that can be done to address political inequality in the UK, but this would be a good start. We urge the government to get behind it and help bring in the ‘missing millions’ at last.”

Professor Toby James, an expert on voter registration, added: “Research shows that younger people are much less likely to appear on the electoral register and that this problem has become more severe since the introduction of individual electoral registration.

“Drawing the electoral boundaries around the electoral registers, as the current bill proposes, will therefore systematically give younger people less democratic representation.

“There are, however, simple practical steps that the Joseph Rowntree Report on Automatic Voter Registration set out, to address this such as enrolling citizens when they are issued National Insurance Numbers – or at the very least, encouraging them to do so.”

Read the ERS’ briefing ahead of the vote here.

Two news stories stood out this week. As early voting opened in some US states, images of voters queuing all day to vote were greeted as signs of enthusiasm in America but confusion outside, while early voting in New Zealand was marked by the delightful ‘scent of democracy’ – the pleasantly lemon-scented hand sanitiser available for voters.

In the UK we don’t have early voting, with all in-person voting happening on a single Thursday. Even though polling stations in the UK are open from 7am to 10pm, it can still be hard for some people to get to the polls between work and family commitments. If you are getting your kids to school in the morning, working two jobs and caring for an elderly relative in the evening it can be hard to get to a polling station even if it is nearby.

How and when you can vote is itself a political issue. If you are comfortably retired or working a 9-5 job it is easy to pop to the polls on election day. If you are struggling to juggle multiple jobs, childcare or shift work then the more ways to vote the better.

Early Voting

Early voting doesn’t work the same everywhere and different places have very different attitudes towards it. Take the US state of Georgia and New Zealand. The two countries are going into very different elections but both places, on paper at least, offer voters the same chance to cast their ballot early.

But that is where the similarities end. Georgia and New Zealand go about organising their elections very differently – in the US the First Past the Post winner-takes-all mentality is given free rein, while in New Zealand power is distributed, so no party can bend the rules to their advantage.

Long waits to vote in Georgia

In Georgia, elections are overseen by the elected Secretary of State, currently a Republican. In fact, Georgia’s current Governor served as Georgia’s Secretary of State while he ran for Governor, meaning he effectively oversaw his own election.

The rules for elections are set by Georgia’s state legislature, the General Assembly, whose powers include the ability to draw Georgia’s electoral maps. Effectively the party that wins a majority gets to decide on the boundaries under which they’re elected, moving voters between constituencies to produce a result to their favour. While formally this happens every 10 years to coincide with the census, it can also happen during each two-year term of office. In 2015, Republican legislators changed district lines for House Districts 105 and 111 to protect two Republican representatives who had barely won re-election the year before – to ensure they got more votes at the next election.

As a result, the seats in Georgia are designed in such a way that it simply isn’t worth parties fighting over them, with around 43% of seats in the upcoming elections going uncontested with the incumbent party facing no opposition at all. At the last election, just 31 of the 180 state House districts featured both Republican and Democratic candidates.

Georgia is an example of winner-takes-all to its extreme. First Past the Post produces an assembly that doesn’t represent the spread of political opinion in the state, winners can redraw the boundaries to ensure they win again. They can also set voting rules that remove people likely to vote for their opponents and have them implemented by an elected member of their party.

Some have argued that the party in charge knows that the people who use early voting tend to vote for their opponents, so don’t provide enough early voting locations.

Distributing power in New Zealand

New Zealand, however, is different. It has used the proportional Mixed Member Proportional system (MMP) to elect its governments since 1996, which means that no party can gain a disproportional advantage and change the rules in their favour. An independent electoral commission organises their elections and ensures the voting rolls are up to date. They also support the work of the Representation Commission who reviews the electoral boundaries after every census and sets the new boundaries to be used in the following two general elections.

While in the UK, the government can threaten to scrap the Electoral Commission and has the power to do it, New Zealand’s system of proportional representation entrenches consensus and cooperation in their parliament. The New Zealand Labour Party would need the support of representatives of at least half the population to change the rules, while the Conservatives have the power to change anything they like on just 43% of the vote.

The best way of protecting our democracy is to only give as much power to parties as their popular support warrants. In the UK, we should be moving as far from Georgia’s winner-takes-all model as we can.

The Parliamentary Constituencies Bill 2019-21 is currently making its way through Parliament, and it deserves some proper attention.

The Bill’s stated aim is to ‘equalise’ the size of constituencies, so that they vary in size by a maximum of +/-5% compared to the national average.

The Bill responds to some criticism that democracy campaigners. But it leaves other serious problems unsolved.

The ERS successfully campaigned against the proposed cut in MPs, arguing that without a corresponding cut in the number of ministers, it would have marked an executive power grab. The Bill scraps the previously-planned cut in the number of MPs, keeping it at 650.

It also ensures that boundaries are redrawn every eight years, rather than five years to take account of constituencies changing populations. The next redrawing will be in time for the planned General Election in 2024. But there’s more to it than that.

Last week the ERS were invited to give evidence to Parliament on the Bill, directly addressing Cabinet Office minister Chloe Smith, Shadow Cabinet Office Minister Cat Smith and other MPs (including at least one ERS member among them!).

ERS Chief Executive Darren Hughes told the committee that the way our constituencies are drawn up is flawed. ‘Redrawing’ is based on the number of registered voters – yet there are still an estimated 9.4m people missing from the electoral roll.

The fact that seat boundaries are carved up on the basis of the electoral roll means areas with lower registration rates will have less Parliamentary representation. This is a real problem given that those less likely to be on the register are typically younger, from lower-income groups, renters, and people of colour.

To ensure all citizens are counted, we recommend basing constituencies on population figures, not just the electoral roll. Until we move towards automatic voter registration in the UK – which is vital – we will simply end up with rows over ‘out of date’ electoral registers forming the basis of our Parliamentary representation. Let’s not forget: MPs have to represent everyone in the area – not just registered voters.

The government is also removing Parliament’s vote on new boundaries. At face value this is a sensible democratic proposition – MPs shouldn’t carve up their own seats. “Very few industry players get the opportunity to sit around and come up with the rules for their own industry in quite the way that parliamentarians do,” Darren Hughes said.

But removing Parliament’s say means we need extra safeguards on the appointment of Boundary Commissioners, to prevent political interference down the line. While they are currently highly respected and independent, we have to make sure that no government can simply pack the commissions with political appointees in future.

As Darren told the committee: “It is so important that these things are done in a clear, straight, technically correct, robust and honest way. If you lose control of these sort of things, you will live to regret it for a very long time indeed.” Why not give a cross-party Speaker’s Committee in the House of Commons the power of appointment, with single non-renewable terms?

And while we’re at it, why not give local citizens a proper say on where their communities and representation should lie? “This might be an area for some of the more innovative techniques for consulting publics, such as citizens’ juries and deliberative democracy mechanisms, where you could take randomly selected citizens for a particular region and use them as a way of consulting,” Darren noted.

Fundamentally though, this Bill is moving the deckchairs. Trust in politics isn’t at rock bottom because of differences in constituency size.

The government talks about the need to ‘make every vote count’ through this Bill. Yet the best way to do that is to give us a proportional and fair voting system. This is the elephant in the room – and it’s about time it was addressed.

Scotland has had the single transferable vote system of proportional representation for local government for quite some time, and that has better reflected the political views of Scotland, in terms both of parties and of communities of interest. With multi-member STV, communities would have a number of representatives they could approach – not just one person expected to deal with absolutely everything. More importantly, everyone’s vote would count equally – rather than millions in ‘safe seats’ going entirely ignored, sometimes for decades.

If the government really cares about making votes matter, they should concentrate on reforming Westminster’s warped and unjust voting system.