Local election turnout – could compulsory voting or further devolution be the answer?

Handing ‘real’ power to town halls to make changes beyond bin collections and council tax could be one way to drive more engagement in local elections, an academic has said.

Voters would have to accept the potential for ‘postcode lotteries’ in the delivery of services, however, something that would represent a cultural shift.

As part of its The Streets That Don’t Vote project, the Local Democracy Reporting Service has spoken to residents in Greater Manchester wards with the worst turnouts in recent local elections.

Out on the doorsteps, non-voters spoke of their lack of faith in politicians, the fallout from Brexit and scepticism as to whether their vote could make a difference as reasons for shunning the ballot box.

• www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/127495/the-streets-that-dont-vote

Robert Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, says poor turnout is simply the result of voters knowing local elections are ‘less consequential’ than general elections.

And unless that changes – or radical measures such as compulsory voting are brought in – it is likely to continue.

He says a ‘vicious circle’ exists within local government in its current form as voters follow national allegiances. There’s ‘actually very little councils could do for good or ill to change that,’ he argues.

“This means there’s no incentives for local governments to perform well or do things differently and because voters don’t see a link between what they vote for and what actually happens, they don’t bother engaging or trying to change things,” he says.

So what can be done to drive better engagement?

Reforms to the electoral system for local government could be one solution, Prof Ford explains.

“The choice has to be made more real; make voters think if they voted in a different way it would have a meaningful effect on their local government. That really requires a more proportional form of electoral system.

“Voters aren’t stupid and would be able to see what they put on the ballot paper can impact on the outcome.

“It can turn a vicious circle into a virtuous circle because they see the council changing.

“The other is to change what local government does, to make the vote more consequential.”

Councils are restricted in what they can do, Prof Ford says, beyond ‘executing central government mandates’.

“They’re just told to do it, and don’t have much control over how they do it,” he adds.

“If we devolve more powers so that councils can say ‘we’re going to do this differently’, and mean it, that’s another route.

“They have to take responsibility for their decisions more, but they will be able to propose how they do things differently.”

This does not come without risk, however – in a short-term political sense for whichever party initiates the reforms, but also the longer impact in its potential to create multi-tiered levels of local government and ‘postcode lotteries’.

Prof Ford – a ‘pragmatic’ supporter of Greater Manchester’s city-region devolution model, although he notes it is not perfect – says: “It’s one of the most popular phrases used by opposition in the modern political lexicon; postcode lottery.

“If you live in one place you get a better deal than somewhere else; culturally there is the belief that any sort of inequality by geography is inherently wrong.

“If there’s any difference in how public services are provided –that’s wrong; it’s unjust – but you cannot have meaningful devolution and meaningful local government unless places vary, in the kind of services they provide.

“So people will say what’s the point of voting in local elections, it doesn’t make a difference.

“If you said, okay, what if you had local government that had lots of control over your stuff, year one they would say that’s great, but by year four they would be complaining about postcode lotteries.

“Voters want both equality in services and greater local control of services, but the two things are mutually incompatible.

“The easiest solution for governments that usually run everything centrally is to resolve that potential issue by continuing to run everything centrally.”

Another solution could be compulsory voting.

It would present a radical change in the political fabric of the UK, but with turnout low and continuing to fall in many areas, it could potentially act as a catalyst to greater understanding of local politics.

With the punitive element only a token part of the structure – with fines easily payable to the vast majority – its existence in Belgium and Australia suggests it could be workable.

Prof Ford says: “Currently, if you’ve got very well-connected local councillors with a good base of activists, you don’t have to appeal outside of that. Compulsory voting would mean parties do have to appeal outside of that.

“I find it a mystery that votes at 16 – although I have nothing against it – is on the national agenda. It won’t solve the problems that we’re seeing with political engagement. It isn’t going to produce 80pc turnouts in elections, when compulsory voting does but is never on the radar. Why not?”

The impact of Brexit, and the UK’s stuttering exit from the European bloc may cause a spike in turnout this year, rather than turning disenfranchised voters away, the expert suggests.

He said: “Our local elections are like mid-terms in the US, as a measure of what is happening on a national level.

“It’s unfortunate for a hard-working councillor who thinks what matters is the job they’re doing, when actually it’s the popularity rating of the Prime Minister.

“Brexit has catalysed the distrust element that politics isn’t working, and parties are out of touch with voters.

“Since Brexit, it has mobilised voters who were already distrustful, such voters coalesced around Brexit. It’s not that there are more distrustful voters about, they’re just more engaged.

“But as time ticks on, those voters might fade out again and will stop being engaged, keeping them engaged in the process is difficult.”

And if nothing changes, with turnout figures continuing to decline, what then?

“There are good reasons to think it will go down from where it is now – because one of the strongest predictors of turnout is party identification and also belief that voting is a civic duty; the whole ‘my grandparents died in the war for this right’. Both of these are on a generational gradient.

“On the other hand, turnout for local elections is already so low that it’s pretty much people who all always take part, so I suspect it could level off, but the equilibrium could be lower than we see now.

“And when the turnout is so low there is the possibility that a disruptive force can come into politics. It’s like a house with weak foundations, it’s easier to blow it down.

“We could see more of that [shock results] and that would be a break to the trend of town halls going to the opposite of what the government is. The lower turnout means a lower barrier to getting in.”

James Illingworth, Local Democracy Reporter