Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Democracy Volunteers recommend changes after English Local Elections
0 Playsin 14 hours
Matt Davis interviews Dr. John Ault, Director of Democracy Volunteers, about their recently released report on the 2025 English local elections, held on May 1st. The Democracy Volunteers team deployed observers across every area in England holding elections, with the exception of the Isles of Scilly. Once again they observed several challenges to the voting process and have made a number of recommendations to the UK's Electoral Commission and the UK Government. They focus on the continuing challenges of 'family voting' in the UK, some problems with the requirement to show ID at polling stations and also with some of the less prominent issues around postal voting.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Democracy Volunteers and John Ault's Involvement
00:00:08
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Observations podcast hosted by Democracy Volunteers. Today i have John Ault, the Director of Democracy Volunteers, on the podcast to talk through the report on the recent local elections.
00:00:20
Speaker
Democracy
Observing UK Elections: Purpose and Process
00:00:21
Speaker
Volunteers have been observing elections in the UK since 2016. As part of these observations, teams of observers go into polling stations to see how well they're functioning. These notes are then shared centrally and used to write up reports on the state of elections in the yeah UK.
00:00:35
Speaker
I'm very happy to be talking through the report with John to find out more about what's inside. Hi Matt. Hello.
Local Government Elections: Key Observations and Challenges
00:00:42
Speaker
So John, what were the main points of focus on the observ of the observations at the local government elections in May?
00:00:49
Speaker
Well there's a few things. um Obviously these are very different elections to North. This is obviously only England elections for local government. Obviously, a number of councils had their elections suspended this year because they're reviewing whether they want to have single level authorities or carry on as they are.
00:01:09
Speaker
So this was quite a sort of a mishmash of elections between the mayoral elections and county council elections and a few other unitary authorities as well. So this wasn't the normal sort of election we get to observe.
00:01:22
Speaker
But as always, we're looking for the same sorts of things. and We're looking for the impact of family voting on polling stations, the requirements to show ID, but also some of the other challenges which we have, possibly also in rural areas, because that's where mainly these elections were, and looking at the accessibility to polling stations as well.
00:01:42
Speaker
Right. So you've got quite ah
Voter ID: Implementation and Challenges
00:01:44
Speaker
quite a big spread there of things you're trying to look at. Now, I know... um You mentioned voter ID there. That appeared as though it could be quite a big issue when it was ah brought in nationally in May 2023.
00:01:55
Speaker
Have there been many issues with voter ID observed in these past local elections? I think that's a very good question. I think the answer is people are getting more used to it.
00:02:07
Speaker
mean, obviously, there is a slightly peculiar question your question, which is obviously the These are local elections. It's not a Westminster general election. Fewer people vote, and the people who tend to vote are people who are used to voting and doing regularly.
00:02:23
Speaker
There are also obviously lots of postal voters. Postal voters make up but obviously a higher proportion of these local elections ah than they would in a general election. So that those obviously don't have to show ID. But we continue to see some challenges in ID. people you know Lots of people don't have driving licences. Lots of people don't have passports. They don't plan to travel any more internationally.
00:02:43
Speaker
And so there are always people at the fringes that don't have ID. There's also very low awareness that we're aware of, of the ah capacity to get a voter authority certificate, which is something that can be issued by your local council.
00:02:57
Speaker
And if people don't know these things that exist, then it's more challenging for them. The list of ID that's available is as long as you're on it. There's an awful lot of ID that you can use, but an awful lot that can't be used.
00:03:10
Speaker
So for example in polling stations I've got this card which allows me to go into polling stations as an election observer which is issued by the electoral commission which is I have to show either a driving license or a passport to prove I am but that's not valid idea to vote in a polling station.
00:03:27
Speaker
A police officer can come into a polling station with his his warrant card the card he can use to arrest you with his photograph on it but can't vote using it so there are some really weird contradictions in the system But we want to make sure that, ah you know obviously, the purpose of democracy is that everyone has the right to vote. so um And it's important we have new ways of resolving that.
00:03:49
Speaker
So
Potential Solutions for ID and Voting Access Issues
00:03:50
Speaker
one of the ways we've suggested resolving it is in in Canada, for example, you probably know there was an election there quite recently. ah They have a system called attestation, where you can actually attest for somebody on their behalf and say, yes, this is my husband, this is my wife, this is my son, et cetera.
00:04:05
Speaker
ah And you have signed a declaration, they can vote. And that then is tested later. But obviously our system doesn't allow that in vote in counting because obviously we just tend to count on the night and voters can't have those votes verified later. So some of them are systemic problems with our process and others are just simple ones. You know, lots people forget to take their ID.
00:04:27
Speaker
mean, I don't carry my passport walking around town during the day. I'm sure you don't. I don't drive anymore, so I don't need my driving licence. So there are all sorts of things that are factors. You know, people with significant disabilities probably don't have a driving licence. So it's important we look at those people as a whole to make sure that everyone has the capacity to vote in person if that's what they want to do.
00:04:51
Speaker
Yeah. so So did you notice a um ah lower level of issues regarding ID in these elections compared to the general election? Yes, and that's in the report.
00:05:03
Speaker
But as I've said, lots of people don't vote in this election who are, you know, perhaps the people who only vote at Westminster General Elections. So as a consequence, there's a heightened knowledge of the process. So I think it's, although it's important we continue to monitor the impact of ID, my impression is that it's becoming more normalised. mean, don't forget, um Northern Ireland's had the requirement to vote with ID for a very long time for all sorts of specific reasons in Northern Ireland.
00:05:31
Speaker
And it's become normalized. You can look at our report from the last general election. Very few people in Northern Ireland ah actually have problems with ID because it's become normalized. But
Family Voting: Impact and Gender Disparities
00:05:42
Speaker
obviously there are challenges and it's something that we, the Electoral Commission and local election authorities who actually run the elections need to continually monitor.
00:05:51
Speaker
ah um Also in your initial discussion of what you were looking for, you mentioned family voting. Could you explain a bit more about what this is? Yeah, family voting is something that we've been looking at for a long time.
00:06:04
Speaker
It's something that you see in lots of countries where essentially two people go into a polling booth together, potentially two, could actually be more, more um that go into a polling booth together and either collude, oversee or directly vote on somebody else's behalf.
00:06:16
Speaker
We see this a lot in the UK. I think people often think our elections are sort of the Rolls Royce of elections, if the Rolls Royce is still as good as it used to be. the The perfect, the Cunard liner, sort of, we that we do this well, it's Britain, now elections are perfect.
00:06:31
Speaker
And they're not, because they involve people. And if you can't see the ballot paper, if you can't remember who you want to vote for, if you need assistance, just be able to read all sorts of things that you can imagine why people might need assistance.
00:06:45
Speaker
That assistance is supposed to be offered by the presiding officer who runs the polling station. Obviously, husband helps the wife, the wife helps the husband etc. And that's not really family voting.
00:06:56
Speaker
Family voting is when someone essentially votes on your behalf, which is obviously a breach to the secret ballot. We've had the secret ballot since 1872 in the UK and we see it breached all the time.
00:07:07
Speaker
So We saw it in about 16% of polling stations at this election, bearing mind this is very rural, we went to fewer polling stations than normal because obviously it's very widespread everywhere from the south of Cornwall to the north of Northumberland.
00:07:22
Speaker
It's a big area that we tried to observe in this year and 16% of polling stations we still saw it and these are smaller polling stations, they aren't big inner city polling stations where thousands of people go through, some of these are polling stations with 150 voters who are registered there. So we have to be conscious that this is a persisting problem.
00:07:42
Speaker
And I think just looking at the data, you'll find over 60% of those affected by family voting are women. It's something that affects women much more than men. Okay.
Ballot Secrecy and Accessibility Challenges
00:07:53
Speaker
So there's definitely a a gendered component to how it functions.
00:07:58
Speaker
Is there also like an age component as well, or is that so not something you've, you observe? i mean, you know i'm 26 as you know so i mean i don't look 26 anymore um i think that is very difficult to analyze people's age when they come to a polling station know you could do a generic young old middle-aged option and we've not done that in the past it's something we could look at but my experience is just from going to so many polling stations over the years is it tends to be older people who are affected it tends to be younger people so perhaps first-time voters are affected who just literally come into this space and think, well, this is all very official looking, what am I supposed to do?
00:08:40
Speaker
um But I also think it's people who perhaps have less English language capacity, people with disabilities often get affected by it. So it's important to understand that this is no one group either that does the affecting or is affected, but it's something which just persists and it's something that we need to, well,
00:09:00
Speaker
Parliament, as you know, was legislated about it. We've got this new Ballot Secrecy Act in 2023, which is supposed to prevent someone influencing another person a polling station or preventing them from voting.
00:09:11
Speaker
And we've seen some signage now at polling stations this time. We saw um signage in 14% of polling booths. Obviously, that's signage that wasn't there before.
00:09:22
Speaker
and We saw it in 47% of polling stations, but we didn't see it in the other half of polling stations. That signage is now freely available. The Association of Electoral Administrators and recommend people use it.
00:09:33
Speaker
It's important that people use it because if it's not in that polling booth, clearly stating you should not vote with somebody else in the booth, you should vote independently, um people perhaps don't even know.
00:09:45
Speaker
You know, I mean, you and I might know election law like the back of our hands. Lots of people don't. You can't really blame them. They vote once every four years. They vote every other year. like we can't expect them to know every subtlety of election law because nobody actually does.
00:09:58
Speaker
So it's important that people are made aware of these new rules and how they should be used.
00:10:07
Speaker
So we'll now just have a quick break before looking into some other aspects of this report.
00:10:15
Speaker
And welcome back. So another key thing you were looking for was disability access of um of each polling station. What kinds of things are you looking for? Well, there are lots of things that affect people with disabilities in polling stations.
00:10:35
Speaker
And some of them are very obvious. Ramped access, doors that open easily, all sorts of things that we can all imagine our problems with polling stations. And there are several things that people don't necessarily think. I mean, if you think about it, our polling stations tend to be in older buildings, church halls, libraries.
00:10:52
Speaker
They tend... sometimes in in a porter cabin type thing that you see on trading estates when they're building new buildings. um And problem is they're not perfect for running a polling station. mean I was in a polling outside a polling station in Devon um at the local elections and because of this it was basically in a little room in a shop.
00:11:13
Speaker
It was the only real public building in that village and somebody turned up in there in the back of a car in a wheelchair and There was no physical way they could get into that polling station. So the staff had to take the ballot paper out and had to take the ballot box out to them.
00:11:30
Speaker
And that obviously breaches, to some extent, it's not the perfect way, but breaches ah the process them voting in secret. So you do need to make sure there are decent accessibility issues in terms of just the physical layout of a building.
00:11:44
Speaker
But then there are other things as well. i mean, people should look at the report. We looked at lots of different things. But... Residing officers are, returning officers are now allowed to provide polling stations all sorts of kit to make voting easier for people.
00:11:58
Speaker
But we wanted to check a number of things, which is just because it's available doesn't mean it's obviously available. You know, people are busy in polling stations during elections and they turn up at six o'clock in the morning to set up, get their polling booth ready.
00:12:13
Speaker
They look at the signs and yeah, I'll put that up. And then there's often lots of stuff they're given. And one of those is called the tactile voting device, which is sort of a braille thing where you put your ballot paper in it and you can feel the number and you can see which is your candidate or feel which is your candidate.
00:12:28
Speaker
And then you can vote for them. You can do it independently because the purpose of all of this kit is to allow people to vote independently. And that tactile voting device was actually available in virtually all polling stations.
00:12:42
Speaker
But only 59% had it overtly available. So if you don't know it's there, Why would you know it's there? But we've also identified all sorts of issues. So look at all sorts of issues like magnifying glasses.
00:12:55
Speaker
OK, people with slightly worse eyesight than the rest of people. um There are magnifying glasses available. But if you don't know it's there, you wouldn't think to ask for it.
00:13:07
Speaker
So they need to be openly on display. Things like pencil grips for people who have problems holding things, all sorts of stuff. better lighting in polling booths. One of the things that we have done in the past and might do it in the future is because these are older buildings, they don't have wonderful lighting.
00:13:23
Speaker
Well, elections don't always happen in sunny July or May. You know, people often vote when it's gone dark. So actually a good lighting because, you know, it's very simple. If you can see the ballot paper, you're more likely to be able to fill it in and vote independently. So There are all sorts things, but I recommend people read that section forum because we're going to try and gather more information as we go on about how those with disabilities are affected so that they can actually vote independently um if they want to.
00:13:53
Speaker
e e
Postal and Overseas Voting: Issues and Suggestions
00:13:54
Speaker
I mean, I've poll-clogged in the past, and so I can definitely attest to the ah ah big bags of stuff you get given. Yeah, yeah. So i think overall,
00:14:06
Speaker
What do you think the main takeaway from this report should be?
00:14:14
Speaker
I think the problem with the UK elections is we've become, not complacent, that's too strong a word, but we're happy with the way they work. And actually, we could be happier. We could come up with better ways of resolving some of the problems. i mean, shall I give you another example, Matt?
00:14:30
Speaker
Sure. One of the things that we've ah noticed is obviously postal voting is increasingly important and especially in a local election like this it's extremely important it constitutes a significant part of those people voting and we know part through conversations with colleagues that lots of postal votes don't get to the relevant to authority on time now that may be the fault of the person sending it back too late it might be caused by the post office it can be affected by all sorts of things but We've also got to bear in mind that there are 3.6 million registered voters outside the UK now who are UK voters.
00:15:07
Speaker
And, but for example, 1.2 million of them live in Australia. Well, don't know you've been to Australia, Matt, but it's it's a long way away. posting And post isn't that good between places like Britain and Australia. I mean, it's not terrible.
00:15:23
Speaker
But if you've got to have postal vote back within a couple of weeks, what what do you reckon your chances are? I think I'd probably think even if I got it the first day they sent it out, I'd be concerned it would never arrive. But I think you should have a way of knowing if your ballot paper's arrived.
00:15:38
Speaker
I also think we've got to start looking at cleverer ways of allowing people to vote overseas. Just sending a postal vote and hoping for the best is not the best way. Now, there are big arguments about whether they should even be enfranchised. We don't get involved in that sort of thing.
00:15:52
Speaker
Our question is, these people enfranchised, how are they going to be allowed to vote? And lots of other countries do very simple things. They actually open their embassies and consulates around the world. Britain's got an amazing foreign office. We have embassies in, what, 160, 170 countries?
00:16:07
Speaker
no There are thousands of staff working abroad in these, what I would make, polling stations, but embassies and consulates, and actually have them voting in person.
00:16:18
Speaker
People go, well, you'd need 650 ballot papers for a generation. No, you'd need one. and you write the number of the constituency on the ballot paper and the number of the person you want to vote for. Well, I've just solved that problem.
00:16:29
Speaker
And that's so that's ah an issue that other countries do already. You can go and observe an election in Finland in most capital cities in the world because their embassy is open for polling day.
00:16:40
Speaker
It's a simple solution, one that would enfranchise those pro people properly and something that can be done very easily. All it takes is government to talk to itself, talk to the Foreign Office and get those... And it would also be a great way of engaging brits overseas in understanding what our embassies and continents actually do um so that's what i do for that so there are all sorts of things how to improve things it just takes a bit of creativity and understanding that nothing's perfect every system needs to be improved the population's getting older you know people have more complicated lives than they used to we don't all just wander around to the local library on thursday afternoon there needs to be brighter and more efficient ways of voting
00:17:23
Speaker
Right. So
The Role of Election Observers in Integrity and Improvement
00:17:24
Speaker
don't get complacent. There we are. That's a good thing to say, yeah. um So I suppose perhaps the most important question, ah where can people find this report?
00:17:36
Speaker
Well, as always, Matt, they can go to democracyvolunteers.org, have a read. we've got any questions, you can always post us a question at the bottom of it. And we're more than happy to answer them. ah This is an important set of elections, quite a complicated one because of all the different levels of authority that were going on.
00:17:52
Speaker
But the report just shows again that election observers exist for a very simple reason. They're there to actually defend the rights of voters to understand how our system is working.
00:18:03
Speaker
And nothing's perfect. I'm not saying it's going to hell in a handcart, but our democracy can always improve. And it's important observers are in there checking the process on behalf of the public, making sure that those elections work as well as possible.
00:18:19
Speaker
All right. Well, thank you very much for speaking with me, John. i I really appreciate it. So, yeah, you've been listening to the Observations podcast hosted by Democracy Volunteers. I hope you've enjoyed.
00:18:31
Speaker
Cheers, Matt. Cheers.