More than half of British adults will vote in the 2024 general election, the lowest share of the population since the general election, a report shows.
The Institute for Public Policy think tank found that only 52% of British adults voted on July 4, the lowest level since voting was extended to all adults over 21 in 1928.
Turnout – measured as the proportion of adults registered to vote – was reportedly the lowest since 2001.
However, the IPPR said this figure was even lower as a share of the adult population as a whole, meaning that if the non-voting party were a party it would have by far the largest proportion of support.
Parth Patel, a senior fellow at IPPR and co-author of the report, said the fact that only one in two adults voted this year was “shocking.”
“If democracy is collective self-government and only half of us vote, then you really have to ask the other half because politics and policymaking are less sensitive to their responses,” he said.
Labor plans to introduce an electoral bill next week after promising reforms amid concerns about low turnout. The voting age is expected to be lowered from 18 to 16 and automatic voter registration introduced – making it easier for people to get to the polls to vote.
The IPPR report also found that precincts with larger shares of seniors, wealthy homeowners and whites had much higher turnout than precincts with smaller shares of those populations.
It was calculated that the voting turnout in the constituencies with the highest proportion of over-64s was 11% higher than in the constituencies with the lowest. Voter turnout was also 13% higher in precincts with the highest proportion of homeowners.
In terms of ethnicity and religion, the voting rate in the constituencies with the highest proportion of ethnic minorities was 7% lower than that in the constituencies with the lowest proportion, and the voting rate in the constituencies with the highest proportion of Muslims was 10% lower.
The IPPR report states: “Simply put, in British democracy the voices of the ‘haves’ are much louder than those of the ‘have-nots’.
“Those who benefit most from democratic decision-making are those with the weakest voices in the room. This is one way to understand the policy dilemma at the heart of our democracy. Why have we made housing so unaffordable? What income and wealth can be tolerated Will inequality increase and remain high? Protect working people’s pensions instead of Social Security?
It added: “The new government has an opportunity to break the democratic doom cycle between political participation and policy responsiveness.”
Newsletter Promotion Post
There have long been concerns about trying to get more people to vote to improve democratic outcomes, but the previous Conservative government only took steps to erect additional barriers by requiring photo ID.
Polling last week showed that more than 400,000 people may be unable to vote in the general election because they lack the necessary identification documents, with people from ethnic minority communities more than twice as likely as others.
In the poll by More In Common, 3.2% of people said they had been rejected at least once last Thursday, a figure that would equate to more than 850,000 people across the UK. More than half of them said they either did not return or were still unable to vote when they returned.
Labor has not committed to changing the government’s policy, other than to consider expanding the list of acceptable documents, which currently includes six passes for older people but no equivalent for younger people.
