It’s time to consider compulsory voting to tackle growing electoral apathy

One of the great joys of being a returning officer is that after all the complex planning associated with running an election from candidate lists, to printing ballot papers, and vote counting, it is with some pleasure and relief that you can finally announce,

“I hereby declare that Candidate X has been elected to represent this constituency.”

However, in all six Scottish Parliamentary elections since 1999, of the roughly four million people registered to vote, those actually voting averaged out at around 2.2 million. That’s a difference of 1.8 million – the absent voters.

Additionally, in each of these six elections the numbers voting for the largest party has been consistently topped by this absent voters total. Maybe returning officers should have been announcing, “And the winner is …. The Absent Voters’ Party”.

So what’s going on? A large part of the answer lies with the accuracy of the Electoral Register containing the names and addresses of those entitled to vote. With an annual update process, and people moving home not re-registering, the Register goes out of date relatively quickly.

Recent research undertaken by the Electoral Commission found that inaccurate or non-registration was particularly high with voters in the 18-34 age group, those living in private rented accommodation, and those living at their address for less than a year.

Beyond the accuracy of the Register, digging into the reasons as to why people don’t vote is harder to come by. The negative impact on the public of a series of poor political decisions directly affecting individuals, including the grinding years of austerity impacting the welfare of tens of thousands of people must have turned many of the electorate away from politics and voting.

Equally, the unfulfilled political promise of Brexit and the subsequent damage to our economy could well have reduced faith in politics. Others point to the serious political mismanagement of the Covid pandemic and its longer-term negative impact on community health and the NHS.

As a group of former council chief executives and returning officers we also believe that the practice of successive Scottish Governments to hoover up services from local government has weakened the ties between local people and their locally elected councillors, and as a consequence, has further alienated the public from the democratic process.

The obsession of successive Scottish Governments to increase the role and power unelected quangos with no local democratic accountability reinforces this alienation.

Plans to create another quango – More Homes Scotland – making it the 134th Scottish quango will simply add to our spaghetti junction landscape of countless organisations with often differing priorities and objectives.

I think it’s fair to say that for many Scots the cumulative impact of all of this is that many have given up on democracy, local and national accountability, and have opted out of voting at elections.

So why not change the voting system? As a group, we have advocated examining the strength of democracy in those countries where compulsory voting is the norm. There must be valuable lessons for example from Australia’s 100 years’ experience of compulsory voting.

We also believe that introducing an online option for voting, given the public’s almost universal ownership or access to mobile phones, merits detailed examination. This could be especially attractive for the 18 – 34 age group mentioned earlier, with the added benefit of building them into our core democratic processes at an early age.

Not a radical change to the existing system, but the increased acceptance of voting by post seems to have gained considerable traction with over one million Scottish electors now choosing to vote this way. Enhanced advance publicity outlining this option might also encourage greater participation in voting.

Assessing the value of the two radical options mentioned above will undoubtedly take time and until things change each elector has two votes on 7 May – one vote for an MSP to represent their constituency, where the candidate with most votes wins the seat.

The second, the regional list vote, is where electors can vote for a political party (or an independent candidate) from a list. These second votes are collected on a regional basis with each of the eight regions in Scotland having seven MSPs. To ensure fairness these votes are counted using the D’Hondt system which allocates votes on a proportional basis.

Check your name and address is accurately recorded on the Register of Electors via your local Electoral Registration Office by the 20 April deadline (see at gov.uk/register-to-vote) and encourage family and friends to do the same.

You can also apply online to vote by post by 21 April via your local Electoral Registration Office. To locate your ERO type in your post code at electoralcommission.org.uk

At the end of the day, it is up to each individual to decide whether and, if so, how to cast their votes.

George Thorley, on behalf of The Mercat Group of former council chief executives / parliamentary returning officers