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Postal Voting Under Pressure: The Case for In-Person Elections
24 Plays1 month ago
Twenty percent of voters cast their ballot by post at the 2024 general election, but is postal voting working as it should? In this episode, Lily Russell-Jones speaks with John Ault, Director of Democracy Volunteers, about the rising challenges facing postal voting in the UK—from missed deadlines and delayed deliveries to the particular struggles of overseas voters. Through Stephanie Carlton's story of being unable to vote despite applying on time, the conversation explores how administrative bottlenecks and an overstretched postal service are undermining democratic participation. John argues that while recent government reforms extend deadlines and allow emergency proxies, they don't address the fundamental problems with postal voting, including susceptibility to family voting and logistical failures. With only six percent of overseas voters in Australia successfully returning their ballots on time, should the UK be looking beyond postal votes to in-person alternatives—such as embassy voting and advance polling hubs? This episode examines whether convenience has come at the cost of reliability, and what it would take to truly enfranchise the 1.5 million Brits living abroad.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction: Observations on Democracy
00:00:00
Speaker
you
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello, you're listening to Observations, a podcast where we talk about democracy, how it works, and how it could work better. I'm your host, Lily Russell-Jones.
Government's Electoral Reform Plans
00:00:19
Speaker
In July, the government set out plans to reform our electoral system, including lowering the voting age to 16, expanding voter ID to include bank cards, and tackling the harassment of political candidates.
00:00:31
Speaker
We'll be discussing the proposals over the coming weeks, and our episodes on Vote for 16-Year-Olds is already out now.
Focus on Postal Voting: Significance and Changes
00:00:37
Speaker
Today, we'll be talking about changes to postal voting and why they matter.
00:00:41
Speaker
To discuss this, I'm joined by John Ault, the Director of Democracy Volunteers, the organisation behind the Observations podcast, which trains volunteers to observe elections and make sure they're carried out in a free and fair way.
00:00:55
Speaker
Thank you so much for joining us, John. nice to see you. How well does our postal vote system work at the moment?
00:01:05
Speaker
I think that's a really interesting question. um I think for people like me, who I'm never at home on Election Day, for obvious reasons, it's a very useful thing for me to have. um I think you probably know that when on-demand postal voting happened about 25 years ago, it saw an explosion in people applying for postal votes. And, you know, to a general extent, that's not a bad thing.
00:01:28
Speaker
But as we'll no doubt talk about as we go along, Postal voting is not the perfect solution to turnout, it's not the perfect solution to improving democracy, even if it encourages more people to actually vote, because it's so much easier to vote. You can, you know, put it as up in the post couple of weeks before election day, you've got a few days to fill it in, you send it back, and... Bob's your uncle, it's been counted. So it certainly makes life easier for voters. But I think there are several ah problems with it, which I think almost certainly are going to come
Trends in Postal Voting Use
00:01:59
Speaker
on to. So I'll leave it there. it's It's okay, is my answer to your question.
00:02:04
Speaker
Well, I think a good place to start with this topic is the increasing popularity of postal voting. So at the last general election, 20% of voters passed their vote by post, according to official figures, and that's up from 12% in 2005. So this is a real shift in terms of how people are voting. What do you think is behind that?
00:02:23
Speaker
Well, I think that's a really interesting question, think it is and it isn't, is the answer to your question. So you could just compare 2005 and 2024. I'll compare 2019 and 2024. In reality, fewer people voted by post last than did in 2019. It just happened bigger percentage because fewer people voted. as consequence of
00:02:41
Speaker
it just happened to be a bigger percentage because fewer people voted so as a consequence Obviously, by definition, as I've just said, it's much more convenient for me as I'm never at home. i was in Wales and on the last day of the general election last year, and I was nowhere near home. So me filling a postal vote makes life so much more convenient for me, and I'm much more likely to do it.
00:03:03
Speaker
There's lots of academic and just evidence-based information out there from people at the Electoral Commission saying that if you've got a postal vote, you're much more likely to vote. The challenge is, of course, getting everybody else there because, you know, it was a bad day.
00:03:19
Speaker
In reality, that's weird because the election in 2019 was in December, if you remember. I mean, not the perfect... Look outside the window today where you are. It's not the perfect time to have an election in December.
00:03:30
Speaker
So, in reality, the challenge of... ah what your question is, is it more people doing it or just a greater percentage of those voting doing it by post? I think in reality it's much more the second. There has been an expansion unquestionably since on-demand postal voting became official. When I was a kid, virtually no one voted by post. You either went or you didn't go. They they were your two choices. And so it's certainly encouraged more people to vote by post. In reality, I think
00:04:04
Speaker
It's just bigger percentage of fewer people voting now. And in terms of that group of people who do vote by post, what do we know about them? Are there particular groups that are more likely than others to use a postal vote?
Demographics and Postal Voting
00:04:17
Speaker
Well, you probably saw a report we did quite recently, which was about people who live overseas. By definition, they are going to be more likely to be postal voters. But, I mean, I don't have the demographics to hand and I don't doubt they're all available online, but my instinct is they tend to be older voters. They tend to people who and are more likely to be away from home, so people who business people, people who are younger, perhaps away at university. But I think there's probably quite a good cross-section, but a lot of this is down to who actually um encourages you to vote.
00:04:53
Speaker
So that might seem a strange thing to say, but If I was um a member of a major political party, I know what I'd be doing. I'd be talking to my voters in my area saying, look, it's much easier, much more convenient for you to vote by post.
00:05:08
Speaker
So why don't you fill this form in to make sure you get a postal vote? So I think the answer is a lot is down to party activity, encouraging postal vote take up. So you see more people voting.
00:05:19
Speaker
And I'd be interested to know, because I don't have the data to hand, if you see that more in marginal constituencies where parties are more active in engaging people in the voting process, not just in, you know, turnout helps elections. You know, it doesn't matter how many people in a constituency vote.
00:05:39
Speaker
What matters if they actually go ahead and vote. um You know, if you get a high proportion of what's turned out, you're going to win, aren't you? So parties will undoubtedly be in in the process of encouraging people to vote by post. And that's, you know, that's part of our system.
Challenges of Postal Voting: Pressure and Supervision
00:05:55
Speaker
Yes, because it's definitely a convenient way of voting. But what are some of the risks that come with it? Well, I mean, as you know, we regularly report on so-called family voting and polling stations where you see one person vote with another a polling booth or observe it or influence it or even sometimes arguably prevent it I think if we see that in 15, 20% of polling stations where that happens in front of supervisors, in front of people running that polling station, often in front of observers as well,
00:06:30
Speaker
I think we can almost guarantee at least the same percentage you have is are doing that at home in the in the family context. So i think it's fair to say it's open to much more influence than in-person voting, supervised voting in a polling station. So I think it's pretty obvious that the biggest threat that postal voting has to the process is you get more pressure on individuals to vote a certain way in the family context.
Reforms and Their Effectiveness
00:07:00
Speaker
OK, thanks for your answer. And in summer, the government announced electoral reforms which covered postal voting. So could you talk us through a bit about what's going to be changing? Yeah, this word reform, I think, is an interesting word. um It suggests this is the Great Reform Act of 1832 or women's suffrage in 1918. I think it's fair these are quite small administrative changes, which are important because they do indicate some of the challenges that um the system has.
00:07:30
Speaker
has with possibly the creaking nature of the postal service um and also the implication of one and a half million potential voters overseas. So, yeah, the deadline extension ah has changed. So essentially now, i think it was 11 days previous, it's now 14 days in which you have time to apply for postal votes to occur. um In practice, that's fine, you know, i mean but this quite a small change. Yep.
00:07:57
Speaker
yeah Returning officers can now issue um a replacement ballot paper if you want one. um Hardly the most revolutionary thing you might think, but really important, because if you are not 100% certain about your postal service in your area, that's a reasonable thing to do. But just because you get replacement doesn't mean that will arrive in time.
00:08:18
Speaker
um And perhaps the most significant one is that if They will allow you to cancel your post-avote and go and vote in person or by an emergency proxy if you don't think it's going to arrive in time or you're not going to vote in time. So, for example, that's that's clearly the case, um as you saw from our report, that international voters, people who live outside the UK who have the right to vote in a UK election, and so-called overseas voters, are...
00:08:49
Speaker
much less likely to get their vote back in time. In fact, in many cases, never received a ballot paper in the first place. So they can either apply, let's say, at home for the election day, they can vote in person instead of giving that postal vote, or vote by an emergency proxy, which is Hardly the perfect solution, but a solution for that individual.
00:09:09
Speaker
um Because obviously proxy voting has the same issues um as postal voting, potentially where someone literally has your ballot paper and can vote who they want to. um And that that, I think, is where I come from and our organisation comes from, is these changes are going to be important for administrators, they're important for voters, but they're essentially allowing postal voting to be easier And ah there is ah not just an organisational discussion about whether postal voting
Debate: Voting Accessibility vs. Effort
00:09:40
Speaker
should happen, there's also a sort of philosophical question.
00:09:44
Speaker
The perfect election is where everybody goes and votes in a polling station, supervised and votes independently in their polling booth. Everyone knows that the world is different now compared to the 19th and early 20th century where people voted religiously and ah went to polling stations and did it because it was...
00:10:03
Speaker
um very very important i think people's perception of voting these days is much less um that it affects their lives i mean i'm trying not to be political but the evidence of turnout suggests that people don't think voting is as important as it used to be um and so political response to that is to increase the ease of voting um i think voting should be something that people understand is an important thing to do whether it's easy or not um The world has changed, but in reality, I think these administrative changes are important and helpful, but they're not, you know, an earthquake that are going to change the way we post the vote.
00:10:42
Speaker
Actually encouraging people to vote generally will be a good thing. And you said there's an organizational discussion going on for democracy volunteers about whether postal voting is a good thing. um Is that in all circumstances? Because I would have thought that the the way that postal voting would really be very, very useful is if it someone has an access need. So maybe if they have a disability that makes it hard for them to get down to the polling station, you can see that a postal vote is yeah by far like the best option for them to have their say, basically.
00:11:10
Speaker
And that was always the case. that that would Even before on-demand post-loading, that was something that could happen. So that that i I have no problem with that all. um In fact, some of the major changes, and perhaps you're to do these in another episode,
00:11:25
Speaker
are hub voting where people are going to be able to vote in town centres for two or three weeks in advance of election day. They might be able to go to the town hall. they might um There's some discussion, as you see in other countries, about having mobile ballot boxes where care homes, a person will go in with the ballot box and ballot papers and allow people to vote in their local area without doing it by post and doing it in person. So it's a more supervised environment. um I think they are actually significant changes, which are ones that are to be encouraged because, yeah, they the hopefully will improve turnout, but also they'll improve the number of people who being supervised whilst voting. Because I think any administrator, any person who looks at the process of voting knows that the best form of voting you can is...
00:12:14
Speaker
independently in a context where it's supervised and overseen by an independent official um and the more people you can get doing that the better so hub voting central voting and voting in person in a nursing home context or whatever it is is much better than post voting by post but voting by post is by definition slightly easier And if we think about the last general election, so July 2024, there were a number of headlines about postal voting perhaps going awry, votes not arriving on time. um The timing of that election coincided with the summer holidays in Scotland. So it was difficult for me for people to move holidays. There were quite a lot of people who were therefore trying to get a postal vote quickly, but were unable to do that. So could you talk us through what happened there and maybe some of what went wrong?
00:13:07
Speaker
Yeah, i'm just so you know, I can disclaim myself on the grounds, I am half Scots. um And so I can honestly say that Scotland's summer is at a different time to England's. In fact, I think England is generally about two weeks later than school holidays in Scotland. And yeah, ah when you have an election, I mean, bear mind, we don't any longer have a fixed-term parliament. So who you you don't know when general election is going to be there. It be only four weeks' time, for all we know.
00:13:32
Speaker
um The challenges people have is, yes, the application process is quite easy, but bots not as easy as you might think. I don't know if you know now, but you have to apply a post-work every three years now. It's not just something that's sort of standard thing which sits there on the books and you just get issued one every time, which is what it always used to be.
00:13:55
Speaker
um And that obviously causes challenges if people are already on holiday or going on holiday and suddenly discover there's a general election. So some of them are, as we're saying, essentially administrative problems where people don't have the time or ability or they're already away and it makes their chances of applying less.
00:14:15
Speaker
um But I also think you and I, let's be honest, are nerds. We think about how politics works, how elections work. I'm sorry, um um you know you're in the club whether you like it or not. um and The problem being election nerd is you and I think about these things regularly. We look at and read the newspapers. We look at legislation and say, OK, this is going to be a change in white matters. And I think I always used say to my students when I sort of explain things in lectures and so on was never assume you're normal.
00:14:48
Speaker
And I think most people don't think about these things. They might say, oh, yes, that guy's come on television says there's going to be a general election. Yeah, great. Oh, well, we'll go on holiday. And I don't think they necessarily go through the process of, oh, I must fill in the form and make sure I've got a postal vote. You and I might think that, and we've been straight down there filling the form and make sure we got our postal votes on time.
00:15:10
Speaker
I think we've got to understand that lots of people don't think like that. and And so if you are going to have a general election, which isn't based on a fixed term, you've got to encourage people to understand that, you know,
00:15:22
Speaker
If you're not going around on whatever day it is, make sure you apply for a postal vote. Make sure you apply for whatever form of voting is it's allowed. Don't forget, if there's going to have methods of voting in the future where you can vote in your town centre for two weeks before election day, don't forget to do that. But I think that's one of the reasons those things are existing, is i think every politician, every person in the election administration, every person who's interested in the electoral landscape,
00:15:49
Speaker
thinks turnout is going down and what's the cause of that the cause of it is people are either it's not interesting enough not relevant enough to their lives they don't see the benefits of it you know they all they're all the same sort of argument or just because oh well you know something's on the telly or whatever it is or we're going oh there are all sorts of reasons that lots of people don't vote and some them are really quite prosaic and unimportant to elections nerds sorry you've joined the club And
Overseas Voting Challenges
00:16:20
Speaker
i think we have to understand that they engage most people engage with this on a very limited basis, on a very limited understanding of what the process is.
00:16:31
Speaker
And why should they? you know Most people have got better things to agree about than election administration. But it's really important that they don't lose their rights the franchise. So as a consequence, I think it's important that some of the things they're looking at, yeah, the extension of some postal voting process,
00:16:46
Speaker
you know, within limitations is good. But I think looking at other ways of voting in person are ways that we can encourage people to understand that, you know if you walk through your town centre or my town centre, and there's a big cabin there, as I saw in Norway, their elections in September, there's a big thing in the middle of the town saying, vote here to- today.
00:17:07
Speaker
Now, you'd think that's, oh, how would we make that work? But I think it's the job of election administrators and legislators to work out how we can ever encourage more people to vote in person.
00:17:19
Speaker
You know, we recently reported if there really are 1.5 million Brits living abroad who could vote, they're not all registered, but could vote in a general election.
00:17:31
Speaker
Surely it's our responsibility, having legislated for them to vote, to actually facilitate that process to happen. So... You know, if you're going to postal vote to somebody else lives in Australia and you get a window of three weeks from when the election called to essentially when, you know, what's that, 15, 20 working days?
00:17:53
Speaker
i mean, you know, I'm no postal expert, but I'm going to guess that your chances of getting a postal vote to Australia and back from Australia within a two or three week period are nil.
00:18:05
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense. So... so Is postal voting the solution to those people? No. But it's at present, apart from emergency proxy voting, the only method of allowing them to vote. So you've got to come up with other ways of allowing them to vote. That's why those are in-person voting. Now, the UK still has something of a global reach, that we have embassies and high commissions in virtually every capital city and consulates in major cities around the world.
00:18:30
Speaker
Let's make them post polling stations. Yeah. There are very simple things that we can do, that actually would discourage people from postal voting and get them voting because it's more likely to count, then you're right. If a postal vote doesn't go through the post, you know, and you don't trust the postal service in your area, you live in a remote
Personal Experience: Postal Voting Issues
00:18:50
Speaker
area and it's your only way of voting.
00:18:52
Speaker
Well, if we can but find ways of voting in person, that will hopefully encourage more people to not vote by post and that will be more a better way of getting to vote because it would be more supervised and less open to problems.
00:19:08
Speaker
Well, that's interesting because we're now going to hear from somebody who I interviewed who tried to vote by post at the last election, but she was unable to do it because of delays in actually getting her ballot pack sent to her. um So we're going to hear from someone called Stephanie Carlton. She's an artist from DISS in Norfolk, and she was unable to cast her vote at the last election because it didn't arrive on time.
00:19:31
Speaker
How did you feel about not being able to cast your vote at the last general election? ah Incredibly frustrated. um It's something that I knew I was going to be away and so I had planned quite carefully for for it to all, ah for me to be able to vote. And yeah i did yes, I was incredibly frustrated because I also felt that it was a very a pivotal election and particularly in my area, we were we were hoping for a big change and I felt like my vote may have actually counted. And so I did feel, yeah,
00:20:06
Speaker
very ah angry actually and frustrated that I couldn't do it. It's it's something that um I know that you don't have to vote in this country. Like in Australia where I'm from originally, you do have to vote, it's compulsory. And so I have ah very firmly always grown up knowing that voting is important. And so in this case that I just literally couldn't do it. So enraged actually. i was i was really um i was really cross about it because it it just felt like there was I was completely powerless to do anything about it.
00:20:40
Speaker
She applied for her postal vote on the 1st of June, well ahead of the deadline for applying to vote by post, which was the 19th of June. She had her trips home to Australia booked on the 28th of June, and election day was on the 4th of July.
00:20:53
Speaker
But as Stephanie's trip to Australia got closer, she grew increasingly worried that her postal vote wasn't going to arrive. So she tried to organise proxy vote instead, where you nominate someone to vote on your behalf.
00:21:06
Speaker
I couldn't apply for a proxy vote because the deadlines were, they cancelled each other out. So I couldn't cancel my postal vote application because the deadline had expired for the proxy vote because I had somebody who could vote proxy for me. I did try and find someone.
00:21:25
Speaker
And then found that actually I'd got caught in this ridiculous situation where my vote hadn't arrived. They could send me an emergency vote, but it would have been too late because I would have left the country.
00:21:36
Speaker
But then it was too late to change the postal vote to be a proxy vote because that deadline had already passed. So I was then in this situation that I couldn't do anything. Stephanie's partner was also going to Australia, but had applied for his postal vote sooner, and it did and arrive in time for him to vote.
00:21:54
Speaker
Stephanie was told this was because postal votes are sent out in batches. So while her partner had applied early enough to be included in the first batch of postal votes that were sent out, she didn't apply on time, and this meant she missed out on her ability to vote.
00:22:08
Speaker
My partner, who was also coming to Australia, he applied for the postal vote, but he applied, i think, a week or two before I did. And he got kids in time. So that was fine.
00:22:19
Speaker
And mine just kept on not arriving and it was getting closer and closer to the date. So I ended up ringing the the South Norfolk electoral office to try and find out sort of what was going on.
00:22:30
Speaker
And they shared the information that they were sending them out in two batches. So depending on when you applied, you were either in the first batch or in the second batch to actually receive the postal vote. Now, that wasn't at all clear on the application.
00:22:48
Speaker
it it was it was basically just that you would receive your postal vote in time. so it just hadn't even occurred to me that I needed to make sure i was in that first, you know, as soon as the election was called and I knew that I'd be away. It's not the mail's fault. It's not anyone else's fault. But I think they it needs to be clearer that you that you need to apply by a certain date to receive your vote by a certain time. I think that really wasn't at all clear.
00:23:16
Speaker
I asked Stephanie what she thought of the argument that if someone can't make it to the polling booth on election day because they're out of the country, they simply don't get to have their say. I think that's a very dangerous attitude that just because you happen to be absent on the day, you don't count. ah you know I think um we are in the society and the culture here, and I think um you're a taxpayer or you're a you might not be a taxpayer, it doesn't matter. You have just as much right
00:23:47
Speaker
to put your opinion and to try and choose a party that that reflects your values and your, and has policies that you agree with and that you want to see put through.
00:23:58
Speaker
um i think that it's a fundamental right in democracy, is it not? You know, to actually be able to, to submit your vote. I think it's, I mean, a lot of the time it feels like it doesn't go the way that one would hope, if depending on how things go, but at least you feel that you've tried, tried to make a difference in ah in a positive way.
00:24:21
Speaker
um No, I think... a A voting day is called somewhat arbitrarily, I think, isn't it? And so I think it's, well, not arbitrarily, but it's certainly not going to suit every single person in the country who wants to vote.
00:24:35
Speaker
um And it shouldn't be something that you should be able to vote anyway, I think. I really do. i think if if the election's called, that's great, but you shouldn't have to restructure everything just to be able to cast your vote. there There should be systems there that actually make it possible, which there are, but they just, you know, didn't work very well on that occasion, I think. But um I'm sure plenty of people. And also, you know, for ah I work away a lot out of Norfolk. So there would be every possibility that I'd be working somewhere out of my area on an election day and I'm self-employed.
00:25:12
Speaker
um So, ah you know, to if I weren't allowed to do postal votes, I would have to lose a ah day's work in order to, you know, that doesn't seem very fair either, I think. it it has to be flexible because a lot of people are not going to be at their home every single day of of the year. They're just not.
00:25:29
Speaker
Stephanie said she was in favour of the changes the government has proposed bringing in, which would hopefully mean she has more options available to her if she were ever in the same situation again, because she could appoint an emergency proxy to vote on her behalf, even after the deadline had passed.
00:25:44
Speaker
it's ah It's a good thing to be able to encourage people to vote, isn't it? And to make it as easy as possible to vote, rather than getting stuck in this sort of situation. as it I mean, i I staunchly believe in voting, so I will continue to to do it anyway. But I think...
00:25:58
Speaker
It may be if somebody didn't feel that strongly about it and then they went through this process and then they thought, well you know, they're not going to bother again. And I think that's that's a shame. So anything to make it easier and more transparent, I think, would be a very good thing.
00:26:13
Speaker
Thank you to Stephanie for sharing her story. So you can really hear how frustrating it was for Stephanie not to be able to vote at the last election. She's someone who actually really wanted to cast her postal vote, but found it impossible to do so. And partly that was to do with logistics. So the vote just not arriving on time.
00:26:31
Speaker
um John, what did you think of that?
00:26:35
Speaker
Well, I think it's an isolated example of a bigger problem. I think... You know, a if we're going to have, I mean, you know, if you order something on Amazon, it turns up the next day. in fact, sometimes it turns up on the same day these days, doesn't they And people have incredibly high expectations and unsurprisingly, incredibly high expectations of will what post now looks like.
00:26:57
Speaker
um In reality, ah the Royal Mail is no longer... her I need to be careful not to be too negative. I think we all know it's not the premium standard it always used to be, you know.
00:27:09
Speaker
Yeah, I think it'll take a bit of a... I don't know exactly when you have to send your second class post now to get there for Christmas, but I'm pretty sure it takes a lot longer than it used to. and i mean, I know I look as old as Methuselah, but I actually do remember two posts a day when I was a kid. So, you know, people's perceptions of the postal service is not as good it used to be. and So that is one major issue is that You know, people, I think, will increasingly become more concerned about postal voting because their chances of it being counted are less. But let me give you another alternative opinion. I know people who work in councils who work, I'm surprised that we talk to people who work in councils and work in elections, and quite often they receive postal votes on other councils.
00:27:53
Speaker
um I know of examples of people who recently voted in elections and and their postal vote went to the wrong council and didn't get to the right council in time. I mean, it is not a perfect science, because you think about it, every postal vote looks pretty much the same, this you know an envelope with purple writing on it, and they look identical, apart from the address it's supposed to go to. And I know lots of people get the wrong one in the local council. So i'm i think the more we can do to encourage in-person supervised voting...
00:28:24
Speaker
And the less reliant we are on postal voting, the more people will be happy about how the process works. Because, yeah, you're absolutely right. I didn't even mention in the interviews that postal votes are sent out in batches.
00:28:35
Speaker
That's fine if you live, you know, two miles for the for the from the town hall. It's not as much if you live 10,000 miles from the town hall, is it? So I think we have to look at the way that we can...
00:28:48
Speaker
essentially wean our system off postal voting if we can as much as possible because then more votes will actually
Advocacy for In-person Voting
00:28:54
Speaker
count. So reversing the trend that we're seeing of an increasing percentage of voters casting their vote by post, you'd like to see that?
00:29:03
Speaker
Well, I don't make it sound controversial and no doubt politicians might say, well, it's much more important we have turnout. Yeah, but if you're creating a turnout which is Actually, and as we've said already, turnout is going down despite postal voting, going up as a higher percentage of those people voting.
00:29:21
Speaker
Yeah. I think the problem is, I'm back to the elections nerd conversation, um is we think voting matters. And because we think voting matters, we want to encourage as many people to get into a polling station as possible to make sure their vote counts.
00:29:40
Speaker
I think we're in a small minority of people and lots of people are, you know, if if people actually realise every time they vote on Strictly on a Saturday night, they're voting. And if people actually realise that when people are voting out, well, not voting out, Alan Carr on traitors, if they don't realise that's voting, they can actually see the direct impact of voting. But people don't necessarily see that as voting, do they? um And we've got to make sure that people feel more engaged with the process. So,
00:30:09
Speaker
voting is not perfect but it's the one chance we've got of saying something Yeah, so the government has said, so coming back to that two batches of postal votes um idea, the government was encouraged to change that by um a Westminster committee that conducted a review of the election. So in October, it said it recommended sending out ballot packs on a rolling basis for postal voters. But the government said there just isn't capacity in the system to do that because it would mean that people's you know ballot papers had to be individually printed.
00:30:39
Speaker
um and sent out every day. And there just isn't apparently capacity in the system for that. um That government body also recommended, or the Westminster committee also recommended that poll cards were sent out on a next day basis. But the government said that that was likely to cost 52 million if they were sending those out by first class post. So it seems like there's a limit to how far the government is prepared to go in terms of fixing some of the administrative problems which postal voters are coming up against.
00:31:10
Speaker
I think that's one of the the biggest questions that people don't understand. You have government in London or Edinburgh or Cardiff or Belfast that essentially says, this is what we want to do.
00:31:25
Speaker
And then you've got the three people in the local council who run the elections department going, how the hell are we going to actually deliver this? Because this is what they wanted to do. There may be this perception that local governments, well, I mean, i think we all see local governments at the moment and understand some of the challenges it's got financially. Elections departments are not enormous.
00:31:44
Speaker
They tend to be three, ten in big cities. They're not enormous departments. And quite often those their tasks are now split between that and democratic services. They're not just running elections.
00:31:57
Speaker
And government in London will say, this is maybe what we want to do but don't necessarily understand the limitations that ah local authorities and those people in elections in local authorities have in delivering what might be the perfect world um now the question is is it worth spending 52 million pounds to make sure everyone gets their vote on time i would say yes but uh that's not my choice is it um i think
00:32:30
Speaker
it just To describe elections departments in the UK and councils, being the SIN dweller survey, suggests a too high a belief that they're they're incredibly underfunded and very committed people trying to deliver elections. And and it's not easy.
00:32:47
Speaker
um and They now have to renew post-mortes every three years. They're going to get new responsibilities doing but doing in-person voting before election day. There's going all sorts of new things are going to get given to do, but are they going to get given the resources to deliver them I think is another question.
00:33:04
Speaker
Well, I want to talk about overseas voters. um So the UK voters who live abroad, because they're in a worse position than domestic voters when it comes to postal voting and postal votes being returned on time. For domestic voters, I think the return rate was 80% of the last election. For overseas voters, it was around 50%. But democracy volunteers actually crunched the numbers and found out that at the last election, in some countries, your chances of getting your vote returned on time were very slim indeed. So could you tell us a bit about that research and what you found out?
00:33:36
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think the problem with international post-voting, I think anyone with any common sense understands that your chance getting vote back from Spain should be higher, or will be higher, not should be higher, will be higher than getting a vote back from the Central African Republic.
00:33:58
Speaker
Yeah. So just because of the post, the nature of postal services, in practice, um you've got to look at i mean the data we've put in that report, anyone can read it, is that there's a lot of evidence that postal voting is impacted by the domestic postal challenges in those countries.
00:34:18
Speaker
And I think the problem with people voting from abroad is that it's a bit like fire and forget with a missile. You've no idea really if it's worked.
00:34:32
Speaker
And the only thing you really know is when you've got it. um And I just, I think my problem is, and yeah, the data basically proves that, you know, as you said, that the the the return rate for international post-posts is significantly lower than it is with people voting within the UK. And that varies depending on which country you're posting from. but just come and say, mean, if I lived in a country with 10,000 miles away, I would not trust my vote to um that system. But at this point, only a minority of pope if people who could vote abroad do vote. But that's ah you know a foolish approach to take, because if 1.5 million people could vote, you have to assume that 1.5 million people might vote.
00:35:18
Speaker
And the system has to reflect that. So I think you've got to, the solution is, yeah, the problems are pretty obvious, is that, you countries with less efficient postal service than ours and even ones with similar postal service, just a matter of time, isn't it? um Yeah. Well, one of the things... I think you've to lead to other ways of voting.
00:35:36
Speaker
One of the statistics I found really interesting was that you found that I think 6% of overseas voters in Australia who were sent their ballot pack returned it on time. So that was one of the lowest. um As you said, people in Australia, very far away. So if there's sort of a six weeks window before an election, um once it's being called, then yeah, maybe that doesn't give enough time for people to get their vote back.
00:36:00
Speaker
But you do feel like the government has given these people the right to vote. They have been enfranchised. And it seems that the logistics and the administrative side is actually becoming a barrier to those people casting their votes. So do you feel like the government should be doing more? Does it have a responsibility to make sure that there's a robust system in place, which means that these people who have been given the right to vote are actually properly enfranchised?
00:36:24
Speaker
I'm going to change one word in your question. I'm not going to say the government. I'm going to say government. because there are many governments in the UK, and I think to say the government suggests it's a politicised question. I think this is obviously a politician's desire that more people vote. That is pretty obvious. In fact, any administrator is in favour of more people voting. The electoral community is in favour of more people voting.
00:36:49
Speaker
But if you're going to enfranchise people, yes, there has to be a system behind that that allows people to deliver on that promise. You know, um i'll so I'll come with a new law that everyone can have a second home on the moon.
00:37:04
Speaker
There you go. Everyone can have one. Brilliant. It doesn't mean it's going to happen, does it? um So you've got to create a system which is not just a nice to have, it's a can actually happen.
00:37:16
Speaker
And I think that's where the difference is between what people want and what's deliverable. And I think administration, you've got three months for a general election or voting on more than one day, which used to happen, and or voting in person in those second countries or whatever it was.
00:37:36
Speaker
Maybe some limited online voting in supervised environments in those embassies in foreign countries. Yeah, why not? But you've got to have government talking to itself. Does the foreign office have a problem with opening embassies or consulates to allow people to vote in person?
00:37:52
Speaker
I think we should try it. You know, I stand for a pilot not in the local nursing home, but a pilot in the British High Commission in in Canberra. Perhaps Canberra's not the best place. The consulate in in Sydney.
00:38:03
Speaker
There's probably 100,000 Brits living in Sydney. Isn't this the perfect place to have um and another voting process? But look at the French. know what the French do? People who live abroad vote in French elections.
00:38:18
Speaker
So they vote in person in those countries, four MPs for their areas, and elections, I mean, we have this crazy system in the UK that counting starts at 10 o'clock on the night of the election.
00:38:30
Speaker
Why? i mean, I don't care what the BBC or Sky News thinks about when elections need to be, and we don't need the first resort from Sunderland 11 o'clock, really, do we?
00:38:42
Speaker
Elections are not a television experience. They are a ah democratic process to selecting who's supposed to run our country. um You know, when ah we had a team recently in the Netherlands. Yeah, we I was in the cold northern bit of the Netherlands, but we had observers in the three Caribbean islands that vote within the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the election.
00:39:02
Speaker
Why can't we do things like that? These are not big things that people aren't doing. It's just that we don't do them because people go, it might be bit pricey. well what if youre in You're right. If you're enfranchise potentially millions of people living outside the UK...
00:39:18
Speaker
That's great. But you've got to give them actual physical opportunity to do it. But, yeah you know, that second home on the moon, off you go. if you can build it, they will come.
00:39:29
Speaker
Well, it sounds nice. Might be a bit chilly. So do you think that the government should be doing more to help these overseas voters? I mean, it's not something that has particularly come up in their proposals for reforming our electoral system at the moment. Well, that's that's precisely why we we did the report, because it's...
00:39:48
Speaker
You know, we problematise the electoral process. We look at the challenges that face voters, whether that's intimidation, access to polling stations, and you know, limitations the post-vote, whatever it is. And the problem is, if government is going to it and allow, encourage, engage millions of people who don't live within the UK, the the physical UK,
00:40:14
Speaker
the chance to vote, you've got to put a superstructure in place that allows them actually to do that, rather than just giving some sort of, you know, oh, well, they can vote by post. Because the the the practicalities in modern life say they can't. So I personally wouldn't be in favour of online voting because I think it's open to question.
00:40:35
Speaker
I think let's try in-person voting in those second countries where, you know, Britain's got a big you know expansive embassies and consciences around the world. Let's put them some use and actually get people voting in them. They might even enjoy It's what the Finns do.
00:40:49
Speaker
Okay, well, thank you so much for your time, John. That's been really interesting. Do you have any final thoughts on postal voting or anything you'd like listeners to take away?
00:41:01
Speaker
Go vote in person. It's much better way of doing it. and But if you're going vote post, make sure you get it on time. Make sure you fill in the minute you get it back and make sure it gets back in time.
00:41:13
Speaker
Don't forget, if you don't think you're get it back in time, you can deliver it to the polling station on the election day itself if you're able to. Okay. Thank you, John. No problem. You've been listening to Observations. I've been your host, Lily Russell-Jones.
00:41:28
Speaker
You can apply to vote by post online through the gov.uk website. You'll normally need the address where you're registered to vote to apply, your national insurance number, and the date of the election or referendum you want to have your postal vote for if it's a one-off.
00:41:43
Speaker
You'll also need to upload a photo of your handwritten signature um on plain white paper. You can also download an online form, fill it out by hand and send it to your electoral registration office.
00:41:55
Speaker
If you've been affected by any of the issues we covered in today's episodes, we would like to share your thoughts on postal voting. Get in touch with us on observations.podcast at democracyvolunteers.org or leave us a comment on YouTube.
00:42:10
Speaker
You can find us at observationspodcast with no spaces. In the coming weeks, I'll continue to cover the government's planned electoral reforms. Thank you for listening.
00:42:30
Speaker
The Observations Podcast is being brought to you by Democracy Volunteers, the UK's leading election observation group. Democracy Volunteers is non-partisan and does not necessarily share the opinions of participants in the podcast. It brings the podcast to you to improve knowledge of elections, both national and international.