American political scientists and psephologists have spent much of the last five years charting what they dub the Rising American Electorate, the growing voter pool made up of minority, young, and unmarried female voters. On the other side of the Atlantic, campaign planners are contending with the opposite phenomenon - the Shrinking British Electorate, where it is precisely BME (black and minority ethnic), young, and female voters who are most likely to be missing.
British elections have two peculiarities that can confound outside observers. The first is an electoral geography that means the number of seats apportioned is often out of kilter with the votes won. The potential impact of this dynamic on the May 2015 election was outlined for RealClearWorld by Conservative thinker Alex Deane here. The second oddity is a voting system - first past the post on a constituency basis - that means supporters of minor or emerging parties have to be geographically concentrated in order to make breakthroughs into parliament. Katie Ghose, of the Electoral Reform Society pressure group, has laid out what that means for this election here.
Unsuccessful campaigns to change voting boundaries and the electoral system have been waged in this parliament, but it is the successful move from household registration to individual voter registration that is going to do the most to shape Britain's electoral outcomes in the years to come. While the register has been frozen to ensure that nobody currently registered should be barred from voting in May, there are concerns about what will happen in the elections after that, and how registration changes will intersect with existing turnout gaps.
At first glance, the change seems simple. Previously one person in a household could register everyone, but under the new system every single voter must register themselves, and provide verifiable identifying information when they do so. Proponents say this is a helpful safeguard against fraud, but opponents argue that we cannot afford new hurdles to participation when turnout at the last general election was only 65 percent.
The fiercest opposition has come from those worried not just about how many people could drop off the register, but what sort of voters will be absent. U.S. readers will be familiar with similar debates about the partisan implications of changes to voter rules, with accusations that they disproportionately impact demographics with a higher propensity to vote for the Democrats.
In Britain, the latest figures suggest that almost 1 million people have fallen off the register in the last year, with the opposition Labour party claiming that young voters are the hardest-hit. That claim is based in part on changes to how students are registered. In the past, universities and colleges could register everyone living in their dorms, but now each student must register themselves. Even before these changes, Britain's young people were the least likely in Europe to vote, and registration rates were around 55 percent for those under 25 years of age, compared to 94 percent for voters over 65.
Campaigners also fear that the changes will deter black voters. When BME voters are registered, they turn out at roughly the same rates as white voters - but they are significantly less likely to be on the roll in the first place. The Telegraph reported that at the last election, in 2010, BME voters were three times less likely to be registered than white voters, and are now significantly less aware of changes to the registration process. Age and ethnicity intersect with housing tenure in ways likely to compound the issues around exclusion. Only 63 percent of people in the private rented sector are registered, compared to 94 percent of homeowners, and they are the group least likely to be automatically verified as the switchover to the new registration system takes place.
The final group to watch on May 7 is female electors. Recent research from the House of Commons library suggests that 1 million fewer women than men voted in the election in 2010. With women both less likely to vote and more likely still to be undecided, watch for significant overtures made to "the missing million." This election features Obama veterans on both sides, but not yet any sign of the president's skills at widening the kinds of people who think politics is for them. The Shrinking British Electorate may yet be the psephologists' story of 2015, but it is not a phenomena in which any democrat can take much pride.
