Written evidence submitted by Dr Christine Huebner (Lecturer, University of Sheffield), Dr Jan Eichhorn (Senior Lecturer, University of Edinburgh), Dr Thomas Loughran (Lecturer, Lancaster University), Dr Andrew Mycock (Reader, University of Huddersfield), and Dr Katherine A. Smith (Research Fellow, University of York) [ELR 002]

This submission builds on evidence from original research carried out as part of two separate academic research projects related to voting age reform in the UK between 2018 and 2022. The UK Democracy Fund-funded project ‘Making Votes-at-16 work in Wales’ led by Dr Christine Huebner[1] and the Leverhulme Trust-funded project ‘Lowering the Voting Age across the UK’ led by Dr Andrew Mycock.[2] These research projects generated evidence, and collated the arguments, related to the lowering of the voting age to 16 at both UK wide and devolved levels. A significant part of this research explored how young voters aged 16 and 17 experience and participate in elections with a particular focus on the barriers to engagement faced by young first-time voters. The research was based on focus groups with diverse groups of young people aged between 16 and 22; interviews with politicians, policy-makers, electoral registration officers, and youth workers; and analysis of survey and archival data.

We welcome the consultation and the opportunity to submit evidence. Our submission is made with a view to electoral administration that supports and benefits the participation of young first-time voters throughout their transitions into adulthood. We address three significant areas of electoral registration that have emerged from our research findings;

1. The role of registration in young people’s ‘Voter Journey’
2. The timing of elections
3. The challenges of maintaining asymmetric electoral rolls

1. The role of registration young people’s ‘Voter Journey’

1.1              There appears to be few advantages of the current system of individual electoral registration (IER) for young people. Recent research indicates that there has been a decline in the electoral registration of 18-24-year-olds since the introduction of IER, particularly amongst young people who do not go to university. Young people are less likely to be on the electoral register than other age cohorts, and are more prone to dropping off the register between elections.[3]

1.2      Evidence from our focus groups with young people across the UK supports principles for electoral registration that centre on equity and accessibility as well as on improving citizen experience and simplicity. Focus groups with 16- to 22-year-olds showed that first-time eligible voters face a number of barriers with regards to electoral registration and turning out to vote in elections and that, as a consequence, some perceive the act of voting itself as complicated and inaccessible.[4] In particular young people who do not receive political literacy education and support from schools, family, peers, democratic institutions, or political parties in equitable or consistent forms often struggle to overcome a number of barriers which impact on electoral registration and voting. Our research indicates that many young people reported dropping off their ‘Voter Journeys’ as first-time voters and this had implications in terms of developing a lifelong habit of participation. Recognised inequalities in youth voter engagement and participation are thus – in part at least – a product of the difficulties that many young people experience as first-time voters. Registration is a particular barrier and is often perceived as a more complex and daunting process by young people than it actually is.[5]

1.2              Our research across Wales in 2020-1 showed that many of the 16- and 17-year-olds who were first eligible to vote in 2021 were not aware of the need to register to vote, did not receive or not open official communication on registering to vote, or were not able to register to vote without additional support (e.g., not knowing that they needed National Insurance numbers). Likewise, the extensive focus groups we ran with 16–22-year-olds across the UK in 2019 and 2022 demonstrated that young people often felt unsupported in the registration process and struggled to access information about it online or through their schools, colleges, or universities. Disparities in the level of support young people received from family members, peers, and educational, volunteering/social action and other civic institutions were identified, with those from disadvantaged, care, and minority ethnic and racial backgrounds least likely to sign on the electoral register. Furthermore, diverse approach adopted by local councils to promote electoral registration of younger voters, particularly first-time voters, also led to significant disparities across local areas, and youth voter turnout. 

1.3              The introduction of Automatic Voter Registration (AVR) for first time voters was cited by some young participants in the Leverhulme Trust-funded project ‘Lowering the Voting Age across the UK’ research in having a positive impact on their future ‘Voter Journeys’. Those supporting AVR argued it would contribute to the building of long-term voting habit and the encouragement of voting as a civic duty by removing barriers to electoral participation created by IER. Interviews with Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) working for local authorities also saw strong support for AVR, with many noting its introduction would remove an important source of age and geography-based inequalities in voter registration. They also noted that AVR had the potential to reduce the costs of registering young voters, making the process more comprehensive and efficient and thus freeing up EROs to focus on other aspects of their work.

1.4              The multiple and complex demands of youth transitions to adulthood experienced by 16-24-year-olds were also cited as a factor in non-electoral registration. During this hectic period of life, young people are faced with significant personal, education, employment, housing, and financial challenges associated with their growing independence. AVR for first-time voters would reduce the challenges of transitions to adulthood by making electoral registration one less thing to accommodate. As the Youth Citizenship Commission noted in its final report in 2009, young people could be registered to vote when they are given their National Insurance number at aged 16, with this information passed on to local authority Electoral Registration teams.[6]

1.5      Further and higher education students who leave home to study and move to a new local authority are faced with a further complication as they are allowed to remain on the electoral register at their family home and register in their new domicile. Our research in Wales indicated that this was confusing, with some students uncertain as to their electoral registration status, and uncertain as to where or whether they were eligible to vote. Evidence from trials at education institutions, such as the University of Sheffield working Sheffield City Council,[7] indicate that the integration of electoral registration into student induction programmes can ensure that students who move to study or who fall off the electoral register are able to sign up easily.

Recommendations:

1a.               Enhance political literacy provision (via classroom-based and extracurricular citizenship education programmes) in secondary and further education to ensure that all young people across the UK are offered opportunities to learn about and gain experience of the process and importance of electoral registration and voting.

1b               Remove practical barriers to voting that are specific to newly enfranchised voters by introducing Automatic Voter Registration for all first-time voters.

1c               Introduce electoral registration programmes during induction for further and higher education students as an additional measure as a measure for addressing young people who fall off the electoral roll or move local authority area.

2. The timing of electoral registration

2.1               Our focus groups with 16–22-year-olds across the UK in both projects demonstrated that the timing of electoral administration impacts young people’s engagement with the electoral process. Young people are often encouraged to register during periods where they have many other responsibilities around exams and planning for their future. For example, young participants in our research in Wales in 2021 noted that electoral registration coincided with preparation for mock examinations, while the election campaign and voting day were scheduled in the middle of the formal examination period. While there was agreed period when young people thought elections should be held, it was noted that the current organisation of electoral registration drives and elections were the most difficult for students in secondary, further, and higher education.

2.2               If young people are going to be encouraged to engage in the electoral process than they need to be given sufficient time and opportunity to engage with its process.  This involves engaging young people in institutional settings such as schools, colleges, and universities, and ensuring that this takes place outside of highly time pressured periods – such as exam times. It is noteworthy that the Scottish Independence Referendum of 2014 was hosted in September and saw unusually high levels of electoral engagement and participation through voting of 16-17 year-olds (75%).

Recommendations:

2a              Ensure that electoral registration activity aimed at first time voters does not clash with exam periods.

2b                            Allow for electoral officers to organise electoral registration events to take place in schools so that young people can register well-before they are enfranchised to in their first elections. We would suggest that such activities should take place in September and October prior to each election cycle in the following year.

3. The challenges of maintaining asymmetric electoral rolls

3.1                The UK now operates a system of asymmetric voting-rights. The devolution of electoral registration to devolved institutions in Scotland and Wales has seen 16- and 17-year-olds given the right to vote in Scottish and Welsh sub-state national and local elections but not UK wide elections. This has meant that the electoral registration period prior to enfranchisement differs for UK and all other elections in Scotland and Wales. 16- and 17-year-olds in England and Northern Ireland are not enfranchised currently to vote in any election.

3.2                   Our research in Scotland and Wales has indicated that many young people are uncertain as to whether they are registered on the electoral roll for some or all of the elections for which they legally vote. This uncertainty does not only impact on first-time voters for different elections, but continues throughout the period of early adulthood.

3.3                Our interviews with EROs have also highlighted that there are challenges related to complexities and costs of having maintain multiple electoral rolls. For example, EROs in Scotland and Wales maintain separate electoral rolls for 16- and 17-year-olds for child protection reasons and that young people have to re-register for UK-wide elections once they turn 18. In the absence of voting rights once again becoming symmetric across the UK, it is important that these complexities to electoral registration, which our research indicates lead to significant drop off, are addressed.

Recommendations:

3A.              The UK Government and its devolved national institutions should acknowledge these issues, and work together to ensure that young people across the whole of the UK are provided with simple and comprehensive approaches to electoral registration.

3B              The UK Government should consider the equalization of the age of enfranchisement at 16 to harmonise the electoral registration processes and political rights of all young people across the UK.

Authors

Andrew Mycock1, Thomas Loughran2 Dr Christine Huebner3, Dr Katherine A. Smith4, Dr Jan Eichhorn5,

Organisations (if applicable)

1University of Huddersfield, 2Lancaster University, 3University of Sheffield, 4University of York, 5University of Edinburgh

February 2023