1. It has often been pointed out that voter turnout at General Elections has fallen since 1945:
Data from here.
2. At the 2010 General Election, the Conservatives won 36% of all votes cast (10.7 million out of 30 million) but only 23% of all potential votes (there are about 46 million registered voters). Source BBC.
3. Turnout is even lower at local elections, at around 40% according to the Electoral Commission. Assuming that each winning candidate won half the votes cast, that means that winning candidates only won 20% of all potential votes.
4. The threshold for winning an MEP seat in European Parliament elections is even lower as MEPs are elected on the basis of multi-member constituencies. The South East region returns most MEPs (ten) and Labour won one seat with 8.2% of the votes cast. Wales has four MEP seats, and UKIP won the last seat with 12.8% of the votes cast. Turnout nationally was very low (35%) so that means Labour won an MEP seat in the South East region with only about 3% of the total potential votes. Source BBC.
5. Most of the fall can be attributed to people aged 40 and under not voting at all, only about half of people aged 40 and under bother to vote: 
Chart from here
6. The UK population pyramid (from here) there are 19.4 million people aged 18 to 40, of whom about half (9.7 million) didn't vote in the 2010 General Election, in other words, there were nearly as many 18 to 40 year old non-voters as there were Conservative voters .
A whiff of something unwholesome
2 hours ago
6 comments:
in other words, there were nearly as many 18 to 40 year old non-voters as there were Conservative voters
....the non-voters dispensed with their right to change anything or take part in anything by giving up their chance to vote. No good whingeing about the government we deserve if the requirement to go do something is too much.
FT, ah yes, but - at present - there's nothing worth voting for, is there? What if they all went out and voted Red Blue Orange wings of the Home-Owner-Ist movement, it wouldn't make any difference.
There are 46 million registered voters, but how many unregistered are there? Bearing in mind that many immigrants have the right to vote too.
I know, I know - not a one's worth the vote. But they ALL have an incontestible defence if you don't vote; even though my vote counts for nothing in a FPTP system with an incumbent who's in for the duration. The SNP might be able to overturn him next time but I won't vote for that shower for as long as I can draw breath (even though I happen to believe that Salmond is cleverer than the rest of Holyrood put together, and most of Westmonster as well).
I'd rather go to vote and then write "none of the above" on my ballot; at least then it has to be counted and returned on, and anyway I've entered that grumpy stage of life wherein I'm a sad git who does things like that because suddenly, certain principles seem to have become important. Innit.
I think that the critical date is 1997. Up until then, the statistics seem to be oscillating around a mean. Then we got Nulab and the coalescing of the political spectrum into three versions of the same centrist party. Many younger people, coming to voting fresh, can see that there is little point in voting. Many older people, failing to adjust to change, continue to vote as they did before, but now they are starting to die off. Others are becoming disillusioned.
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Eastern Counties MEP
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