Tag Archives: voter registration

The Voice

Farron calls for voter registration deadline to be extended after “shambles”

By The Voice | Wed 8th June 2016 - 8:15 am

Tens of thousands of people wee still trying to register to vote before last night midnight’s deadline but the site crashed and none of them were processed.

This last minute surge and the problems associated with it were highlighted in a blog on Democratic Audit last week as we repotted on Saturday.

Tim Farron is one of many voices calling for the deadline to be extended to enable those people to have their say in the referendum. He said:

This is a shambles the government has presided over and people must be given an extra day to exercise their democratic right, It is also a major blow to the ‘In’ campaign and our prospects of staying in Europe.

With individual voter registration, and a big campaign to encourage young people to register, many of whom have been trying to do so last minute, this could have major consequences for the result. Evidence shows younger people are overwhelmingly pro-European, and if they are disenfranchised it could cost us our place in Europe.

It could also turn them off democracy for life.

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 10 Comments
Roisin Miller

Opinion: An MP who takes me for granted has left me feeling disenfranchised

By Roisin Miller | Sun 8th February 2015 - 8:59 am

Confession time. I’m a political activist and I’m not currently registered to vote. I have dropped off thanks to individual voter registration and I haven’t sought to redress it.

This is something which I find reprehensible, yet I am lacking the motivation to correct it.

I live in Esher and Walton which since 1906 has only ever returned a conservative MP. The lowest majority was in the 1930s, it was 16%. Dominic Raab got 58% of the vote in 2010, a majority of around 18,000.

I’ve written to Raab on a number of occasions and always got a reply. Often quite half hearted but it’s always come.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 33 Comments
Lord William Wallace

Lord William Wallace writes… Make national voter registration day part of your campaign

By Lord William Wallace | Wed 28th January 2015 - 10:49 am

February 5th will be Bite The Ballot‘s 2nd ‘National voter registration day’. Last year this NGO, with a number of companies and schools in support, succeeded in sharply raising the number of young people registering. This year, in the run-up to the general election, they aim to add more than 250,000 to the register. You will find details of what they plan, and how they plan to manage it, here.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 7 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Nick Clegg puts £10 million into encouraging students and young people to register to vote

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 2nd December 2014 - 8:54 pm

So, when there’s a certain amount of money around to encourage voters to register, what does Nick Clegg do with it?

Does he put it into a voter registration drive in the affluent ex-pat communities of Spain or does he put it into that group of people it can be difficult to find, young people and students? The latter, of course.  From The Guardian:

Lib Dem sources said Clegg, whose Sheffield Hallam constituency contains a high number of students, was “determined to ensure that the government does everything it can to help students register to vote”.

One said: “Nick Clegg has now

…

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Lord Roger Roberts

Lord Roger Roberts writes: Peers must resolve crisis of democracy in Wales

By Lord Roger Roberts | Tue 11th November 2014 - 3:24 pm

This afternoon, with the full support of all the main parties in the Welsh Assembly, the House of Lords will debate cross-party amendments to the Wales Bill, designed to radically improve voter engagement in Wales. The UK Government will instruct Coalition Peers to vote against them. How can we arrive at such a situation?

There is a crisis of democracy in Wales which the UK Government and The Electoral Commission have stubbornly, and repeatedly, refused to acknowledge.

Despite the sterling efforts of some Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), only 51% of our youngest citizens are registered to vote. And, in 2011, only 35% of 18-24 year olds voted in Welsh Assembly elections. If this status quo persists much longer, than less than half of young people in Wales will have an opportunity to voice their opinions at the ballot box on 7 May 2015.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 7 Comments
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Recent Comments

  • David Le Grice
    Weird that this appears to be the first LDV article about this, and the first time anyone in the parliamentary party has spoken up about it (as far as I'm aware...
  • Jack
    Delighted to see conference overwhelmingly reject the EHRC guidance (they don't deserve three quarters of that name - I accept they are a commission). People ar...
  • Geoff Reid
    Somebody had to say it eventual!y. Thank you Tom for inviting us to be honest on this matter....
  • Hywel
    Important point there Paul. For all the angst about 'lack of cut through' that has pretty much been the case for most of the time the LIb Dems existed except f...
  • Roland
    @Gwyn, I agree with David Raw about relative urgency. However, even in the list of political reforms, I would put changes to voting way below the changes that n...