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Home arrow Holyrood news arrow News categories arrow UK Parliament (HCL12) arrow Voting should be at the weekend or on bank holiday
Voting should be at the weekend or on bank holiday Print E-mail
Thursday, 03 May 2007

Labour MP Emily Thornberry has urged Chancellor Gordon Brown to make polling day an extra bank holiday in the middle of the week or have French style weekend voting.

The proposal comes from a collection of essays, titled Politics for a New Generation, that will be published by the Institute for Public Policy Research in May to mark the 10th anniversary of Labour’s 1997 election victory.

In last year’s local elections, turnout fell by four points to 36 per cent despite extended voting hours, postal voting and warm and sunny weather across the country on polling day.

The Institute for Public Policy Research’s analysis shows that overall turnout is in long-term decline and that the young and the poor are less and less likely to vote.

In the last two General Elections, the participation gap between manual and non manual workers more than doubled – from around 5 per cent in 1997 to around 11 per cent in 2005.

In the last General Election, young people were only half as likely to vote as older citizens, and evidence suggests that young people are not picking up the voting habit as they get older.

Thornberry said: “Being serious about reducing inequalities in election turnout also means making it easier for everyone to vote. A straightforward way to achieve this would be to move elections away from a regular workday."

"The most obvious option is to have elections on Saturdays – but we could also consider holding them on Wednesdays, and making election day a bank holiday. An unusual day off in the middle of the week would draw attention to the election, and it would give more people the time to vote, yet without encouraging them to take the day as part of a long weekend.”

Politics for a New Generation also includes chapters by Ed Balls, Ed Miliband, David Miliband, Hilary Benn, Beverley Hughes and others.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 03 May 2007 )
 
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