Voter registration: lessons from the US In the 1980s American academics Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward, alongside the organisation Human SERVE, campaigned to make voting and registering to vote easier for citizens. At the time, America was concerned about low levels of turnout and registration. The campaigners argued for measures such as allowing citizens to register to vote at various public offices such as welfare offices and childcare centers, with the aim of promoting participation amongst groups where it was traditionally low.   Their campaign culminated in the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).  This expanded the number of locations and opportunities whereby eligible citizens could apply to register to vote. In particular, citizens were to be given a voter registration application when they applied for or renewed a driver’s license, or when applying for (or receiving) services at certain other public offices. It was praised by many as being a triumph for the civil rights movement which had previously fought to abolish the Jim Crow laws. Signing the law, President Bill Clinton declared that:  

 

Some campaigners, including Piven and Cloward, were disappointed that the Act didn’t go far enough. Nonetheless, the legacy of NVRA is clear.  Today, a huge proportion of new registrants use this mechanism to register to vote in the US. Data from the US Electoral Assistance Commission shows that 37.1 per cent of registration forms were submitted via motor vehicle agencies in 2010. Over 18 million citizens used this method in 2008. Subsequent empirical studies showed how this (and other methods) could improve registration rates (see here for an overview). Frances Fox Piven and colleagues later argued that the effect on registration could have been greater had federal agencies worked harder to enforce the Act. Fast-forward twenty years and cross the Atlantic to 2012. Today, the UK is in need of similar reforms. The government is planning to introduce individual voter registration as part of the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill. This involves making registering to vote  bureaucratic for many citizens. Registration is currently conducted on a household basis meaning that one person can register every citizen in each house. The proposals will require each individual to register themselves and provide personal identifiers such as national insurance number. These will be checked against government databases to check whether they are legitimate voters.   I have recently undertaken research on UK electoral administration and the effects that individual electoral registration will have. This will be published in  very shortly (download a pre-print here) and is based on extensive interviews with local election officials.  The research suggests that:  

• Individual registration is likely to lead to a considerable decline in levels of registration, especially amongst the younger and minority populations
• Individual registration is a more resource intensive way of compiling the electoral register than household registration. There may also be many unforeseen costs to local government at a time that they are faced with budget cuts. Returning and registration officers may therefore make cuts in other services to allow for the introduction of individual registration.
• The requirement for citizens to provide personal identifiers, such as a national insurance number, may confuse many voters.

  These proposals come at a time of serious electoral registration decline. An Electoral Commission Report in December suggested that the parliamentary electoral register was as low as 82.3 per cent. As I have argued in a previous blog post, the UK compares poorly internationally. Under-registration is a serious problem for UK democracy.   Individual electoral registration was announced in a White Paper in June last year. Since then the government has already shifted its position on a number of policy positions. For example, the 'opt-out', whereby citizens could tick a box and not be included on the register has been dropped.  Nick Clegg hinted that this might happen in October last year. The proposed Bill suggests that there will be now be a penalty for those who do not register. These changes must be, and have been, welcomed by campaigners such as the Electoral Reform Society, who launched their Missing Millions campaign in response to the government’s initial plans.   The government has invested much hope in using data-matching to improve electoral registration. Data-matching pilot schemes were initially launched to check the accuracy and to identify people who may be eligible to vote and then invite them to apply to register. In February 2012 it was suggested that ‘the names and addresses of all individuals currently on an electoral register will be matched against the data held by public bodies such as the Department for Work and Pensions and local authorities themselves’ and that ‘[i]f an elector’s information can be matched, the individual will be automatically placed onto the new IER register and would not need to take any further action to be registered under IER’ (see: here). This too must be welcome news for those seeking to maximise electoral registration.   Unfortunately, the Electoral Commission’s evaluation of the initial data-matching schemes did not fully test such an approach and instead highlighted a number of concerns about relying on data-matching. It suggested that the process was labour intensive with significant work required to analyse the data. Moreover, the approach ‘did not prove very effective at getting new electors on to the registers’. Only 7,917 citizens were added in the 22 pilots (although this is still enough to win a few marginal constituencies). This leaves efforts to improve electoral registration levels somewhat in the air. The Electoral Registration and Administration Bill therefore offers the opportunity to address this. Here are some recommendations, based on my research findings:   1. The government could therefore consider other new schemes to offset the anticipated decline. These might include:  

• Allowing citizens to register to vote when accessing other government services such as obtaining a driving licence (as in America). This could be an especially effective way of targeting younger citizens, many of whom many be keener to get their drivers licence than register to vote. The data-matching project noted that using the DVLA database was ‘more effective at targeting 16 and 17 year olds as opposed to the population as a whole’. Why not add a section to the drivers licence application form asking them to register to vote at the same time? What about citizens claiming for state benefits? Moving house? Until there is confidence that data-matching works, this could be an important mechanism for dealing with under-registration.
• Implementing online registration for new registrations. This was always the government’s plan, it seems, but it is important that it is taken forward and implemented. At present citizens can only re-register online. They have to download a form, print it off, sign it and post it. Couldn’t this be simplified?
• Providing penalties for those who do not register (which, as mentioned, now appears to be on the cards...).
• Election day registration is considered as a long-term policy aim. This may be some way away, but it is known to work in some states and would genuinely approach election administration from the voters perspective.

  2. Measures should be put in place to ensure sufficient  funding of elections. This could involve ring-fencing new funding for election departments. Individual electoral registration will cost more money to implement. Data-matching will cost more money to implement. Elections in America are littered with examples of where there have been problems (Florida, 2000) indirectly or directly resulting from underfunding. The Electoral Commission has pointed out that the government ‘has not yet explained how funding will be allocated.’   3. The views of citizens towards the registration process should be carefully monitored through survey and focus-group research after the implementation of IER. This is important because my research showed that the requirement for citizens to provide personal identifiers, such as a national insurance number, may confuse many voters. Or they may be reluctant to provide personal identifiers to election officials.   4. A detailed implementation plan for individual electoral registration is published as soon as possible. Electoral administrators need time to change software, re-skill staff and change processes. Changes to the way the electoral register is compiled does not always capture the public or media's interest in the way that it did, and still does, in America. But it has important implications for how many people vote, electoral fraud, whether people perceive electoral institutions to be fair and sometimes who wins elections. There have been some excellent recent blog posts from the like of Ros Baston, Mark Pack, Stuart Wilks-Heeg and others in recent months and weeks. Let's hope there remains continued public interest in this important, but easily forgotten, issue.   About the author   Toby S. James is a Lecturer in the Department of Political and Cultural Studies at Swansea University.  He is the author of  (2012, Palgrave Macmillan).  He is currently working on a project funded by the Nuffield Foundation and McDougall Trust on performance management and election administration.

An important victory for voters, but no time for complacency   In the wake of the pomp and pageantry of the Queen’s speech last week, a victory for the voter emerged from the Cabinet Office in the form of the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill.   Last year the government’s draft bill on electoral registration seemed set to disenfranchise millions, creating a mockery of our electoral system by enabling citizens to simply ‘opt out’ of their democratic right to vote. The Electoral Commission estimated the proposals could lead to a drop in the completeness of electoral registers from over 90% to 65%.   Following months of campaigning by the Society, in which we presented evidence to the committee and lobbied hard to remove the most harmful elements of the bill, the bill introduced last Thursday is a million miles from its original draft. Gone is the bizarre ‘opt out’ and the annual canvass, critical for reaching voters who have moved during the year, has been reintroduced for 2014 (albeit by delaying the 2013 canvass). ERS has long argued that an annual canvass is necessary in the year individual registration is introduced in order to capture the two to three million people who will have moved in the months between canvass and introduction. It is also heartening to see that the government has listened to the Society’s concerns about abolishing the fine which registration officers rely on. The government will now legislate for a civil penalty similar to a parking fine.   Whilst we welcome these changes, it is no time for complacency. The devil is in the detail of the regulations and we will be scrutinising both this bill and the secondary legislation to ensure we do not see the sort of drop experienced in Northern Ireland when individual electoral registration was introduced there. The impact on postal and proxy voters is still a concern. Research by Scope found that in 2010, 67% of polling stations had one or more significant access barriers for disabled voters. It cannot be right that people with a regular postal or proxy vote who fail to notice the change are required to attend a polling station in order to exercise their democratic right.   The missing millions are still out there. With electoral registers only 87% complete at present we need to not only ensure more people do not drop off the register but to look at ways to increase registration across the board. Depleted electoral registers have greater democratic implications. They will be used to draw the next set of constituency boundaries which means unrepresentative registers will lead to unrepresentative constituencies – with some MPs representing many more constituents than others, most likely in inner city areas.   The leader of the opposition announced this weekend that his party would begin a voter registration drive. Clearly low levels of registration should be a concern to politicians, but is enough being done to tackle the root causes of the issue? Low registration is closely linked to low turnout but it is also indicative of a wider disconnect. Making voter registration easier will not address the underlying problems but it is an important step in making the processes of democracy more in-tune with ordinary citizens’ lives.   Abolishing the archaic system of household registration is the first step in what could be a greater modernisation of our electoral system; creating one that is appropriate for 21^st century citizens and their lives. Individual electoral registration opens the door to further innovations in future, such as linking electoral registration to other citizen-state transactions like applying for a driving licence and online registration.   In October last year the proposals for individual voter registration were being called the biggest political scandal you’ve never heard of. The Society has campaigned hard to make voters' voices heard, and the government has listened. We have a better bill as a result.     To find out more about what the ERS has done on electoral registration visit our missing millions campaign page

Politicians have to put self interest aside on Lords reform   Well another Queen’s Speech has come and gone.   We can only welcome the government’s pledge to legislate on reform of the upper house. But Lords Reform will take more than words; it will require action.   If you hold the power to help decide how Britain is run you should be elected by us, the British public - that’s democracy. The public know it, so how long can a small privileged clique of politicians afford to fool themselves?   In the current economic climate to be handed a job for life because your father was a lord, and to be able to turn up, claim £300 and go home again, is quite simply an embarrassment.   Hearing politicians bewailing the time it will take to pass Lords reform, you’d be forgiven for forgetting that it is their petty in-fighting that will prolong the process.   There is no reason for this process to be drawn out. MPs from the three main parties were elected on a commitment to Lords reform, the proposals are backed up by consensus from a century of debate and public opinion is behind an elected second chamber.   If we blow this opportunity now we’re going to end up spending another hundred years of our parliament’s time trying to undo that mistake. We cannot allow the turkeys to veto Christmas. Politicians’ self interest must not be allowed to waste any more of our time.