Individual voter registration could signal a slow devastation of our democracy
On election day in 2010, I was knocking up in Figges Marsh in my constituency in south London when I came across a group of teenage boys. Egged on by his mates, one of them shouted over ‘Don’t worry, you don’t need to knock on my door, I already voted,’ adding, for laughs, ‘My mum made me!’ Now, 18 months on, there is a serious side to his joke.
At a time of so much concern about social unrest and family breakdown, the government plans to stop mums with a sense of social responsibility registering their families to vote. Instead, everyone will have to register in person.
However, the evidence is that, without mums, many young people will not register to vote: when ‘individual registration’ was introduced in Northern Ireland, the register collapsed by 11 per cent, and the Electoral Commission says this ‘adversely affected’ disadvantaged groups like the young, the poor, ethnic minorities, and those with disabilities.
Worse, the government will make registering optional. In the US, a similar system sees the rich almost a third more likely to register to vote than the poor, with only six in 10 people on low incomes registering. That election in 2000 was decided not by hanging chads but by thousands being purged from registers or not registering in the first place.
On top of that, the government will stop councils doing their annual registration canvass. In my area, before the council knocks on doors, only 65 per cent of households fill in forms. Afterwards, it leaps to 97 per cent. And the strange thing is, it is Liberal Democrat seats that might lose out most. An eight per cent swing away from them will leave them with just 15 seats. But individual, optional registration and the end of annual canvassing will mean perhaps a third of voters drop off the register, especially young people and students – traditional Liberal Democrat voters.
What’s more, the next boundary review will be based on the size of electorates after millions have fallen off the register. That will result in rotten boroughs, with some MPs representing huge populations on low incomes while other MPs idle along representing small populations of the rich.
So why is the government doing it? It says that it is to stop fraud. But its own impact assessment admits fraudulent registration is ‘rare’. Convictions for electoral malpractice are tiny, usually involving dubious campaigning, impersonation or other voting irregularities, but not registration.
Then it says that it is because 40 per cent of people ‘perceive fraud to be a problem’. But the question this figure comes from was not about registration; the question that was asked found only two per cent think registering to vote is ‘very unsafe’.
The same survey also found nearly 20 times more people satisfied with how we register than dissatisfied, although satisfaction is much lower in Northern Ireland – thanks, the Electoral Commission helpfully explains, to its different registration system and not having canvassed electors since 2006.
So, despite the government’s claims, it is clear there is no groundswell for change.
Devastating the electoral roll will also make it harder for the police to find criminals. Businesses like direct marketers or banks will lose out just when the economy needs growth. And let’s not forget those charities that use the electoral register to raise funds for their good causes.
But what concerns me is the effect disenfranchising millions will have on our social fabric. As we discovered this summer, we need more inclusiveness, not less.
There is already a strong case that anyone who wants the rewards of being part of a community should sign a sort of social contract, and what better way than registering to vote? In other words, if you want to claim benefits, or a driving licence or a national insurance number – be on the electoral register! That would certainly help tackle benefit fraud. And of course it would help us improve the comprehensiveness of the register. But best of all, good mums will still have a special place in our democracy.
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Siobhain McDonagh is MP for Mitcham and Morden
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I think it’s a great idea, you lot are worried the working class will not bother even registering, and I think for once the Tories are right.
I think it’s a good idea, the problem is why people think voting isn’t worth bothering with and can’t be bothered to register.
Get away from this absolute nonsense and excuse making that people don’t vote, it’s a lesson that should have been learned from the disastrous, wasteful and clearly unmerited failure that was the YestoAV campaign.
Having helped win a so-called safe Tory seat, that the party had dismissed as not worth bothering with I know people vote and want to vote IF you give them a reason to vote for you.
Patronising the working class and saying we need our mummies to sign us up is frankly laughable.
The real question is, is it necessarily good that the kid who had now knowledge of the parties or any politics to go and vote for whoever bribes him the most or who his parents tell him to vote for?