Transcript
Speaker: so and welcome back. to the Democracy Volunteers podcast series. how to increase turnout. In this series we invite guests from across the world. to discuss their unique solutions to the problem of decreasing turnout.
Speaker: in this In this episode... we are discussing the introduction of early voting. Early voting is certainly not a new idea. A pilot. to evaluate its effectiveness have taken place across the yeah UK. In Wales, Tunbridge Wells, North Herefordshire. for Cher and most recently in Cambridge during the 2026 local election.
Speaker: Other countries such as Finland and Australia have embraced early voting, particularly for its overseas citizens, where they have both set up over 100 voting centres across over 80 countries with great success.
Speaker: So why haven't we done this? And would early voting even in the UK even work. To answer these questions we are joined by the Electoral Services Manager at Cambridge City Council.
Speaker: Vicky Jenner. Vicky, it's great to have you onto the podcast. How are you doing? yeah good morning thank you very much for inviting me From its name early voting is relatively intuitive as to what it actually is.
Speaker: but can you give our listeners a sense of what early voting actually looks like and how it's different to normal voting, if if kind of any. Um. Yes, so early voting, as you say, is exactly what it says on the tin. It's the opportunity to vote in person before polling day. So in the UK, polling day is traditionally held on a Thursday.
Speaker: um it's very it's It's set in stone um and early voting gives people the opportunity to go and vote in person in advance of that. So the pilot that we did for the city council elections in May of this year.
Speaker: gave people the opportunity to vote on three days. before polling day. So Thursday the 30th of April, Friday the 1st of May and Saturday the 2nd of May. so on those days people could go along to a designated hub.
Speaker: So not their normal polling station. and they could go along and vote in person. And really zooming into that Cambridge pilot, which. you worked on it's so fantastic to kind of get your insight into Why was Cambridge kind of chosen as...
Speaker: an area for a pilot and i understand there's other pilots that have happened and What problem was early voting really trying to solve in? in Cambridge. Well, I mean, I don't know why we were chosen. I do know why we put ourselves forward. um So the the government obviously are looking at ah introducing...
Speaker: um More. accessible ways of voting. So giving people more opportunity to to go along and and be able to vote and modernise the way that we do things in the UK. Cambridge is linked with innovation in in many ways.
Speaker: And we thought we would be a really ideal site for this. um When the government came out last year with a prospectus to run to run the pilots, I had only just come back from observing the Norwegian parliamentary elections.
Speaker: and I had been extremely impressed. by how efficient their polling stations were. There were that you know there was zero queuing. we We spent half an hour in one polling station.
Speaker: 136 people came through that polling station. and they did not queue and i was absolutely fascinated how they were using technology to do that how they were um using the the building itself to to walk people through that. So when I came i came back from Norway thinking, you know, this this is really interesting.
Speaker: And then the opportunity to pilot had come out and I thought I would love to see. how we can interpret that and how we can do that in the UK. Can we give people more opportunities to vote?
Speaker: Would it increase turnout? I don't think that was the actual... um That wasn't the whole point of the pilot. It was it was about modernising and giving people more options to vote. But um I was really keen that we tried to imitate what I'd seen in Norway and be able to give people the the chance to do something different.
Speaker: And what you said there about kind of. maybe early voting isn't there to massively increase turnout. So in North Herefordshire where That was the highest number of votes. move forward. North Hertfordshire, sorry.
Speaker: It was. 2 .4 % of registered voters chose to vote. in one of the early voting hubs, which kind of is ah is a relatively low figure you would say. So what's the pilot that you introduced in Cambridge? Did that kind of solve the issues around?
Speaker: maybe increasing accessibility to vote and maybe eat from like a specific standpoint. decrease queues on the actual voting day. Yeah, so... ah taking the decreasing cues first.
Speaker: The way that we set it up in Cambridge was that we... we um So we did use technology. We used electronic registers. um that you so that any voter in Cambridge could go to any of the three voting hubs that we established over those three days. So depending on, you know, we had people in the city centre that just happened to be walking past.
Speaker: had their driving license with them so they came in and voted. People who might live in the north of the city but work at Addenbrookes, which is in the south of the city. they popped into that hub after they finished their shift. So it it took in quite a range of people and it made it convenient, which was the whole point.
Speaker: and when they walked into that polling station they could go to There were two desks, two poll clerks, each had a set of ballot papers and they could just walk into the polling station. go to the desk that was free and get their ballot paper to vote.
Speaker: quite often in polling stations because you are restricted to certain roads at certain desks. Um, because you're using paper registers. people are queuing so they might be queuing for one desk because that's where the larger roads are and the other desk is free and people are very frustrated that Why can't I go to that desk? so it It was really about the people.
Speaker: at the flow of the polling station and being people being able just to walk in so there were times that we did have a few people waiting but it didn't cause a problem. People were quite excited to talk about the pilot, they wanted to understand what was going on, why they could do it and I'm really pleased that there there was a real buzz in those hubs.
Speaker: during the early voting period because people were quite keen to see how it worked. Um. so it did did it solve the problem of queuing well Maybe not, because we did have a few people waiting. um But. because we were using tablets, we were using these e -registers.
Speaker: It did mean that if we had got queues, I could have opened up another desk automatically. I had some ballot papers there. I had staff on standby in the station and we could have just opened up another desk. So it gives you that dynamic to be able to have. as many poll clocks as you need um at any time, which was really interesting to see.
Speaker: Vicky, one thing that's really interesting is... When you look at the statistics around early voting and actually the turnout that it brings in isn't exactly eye -watering.
Speaker: What is the potential of early voting if introduced on a mass scale? I think there's a a lot of potential for it um the statistics at the moment it is just in pilot form here in the yeah UK the statistics make you think well it doesn't really work but I do think it takes a generation of people to actually um get on board with something like this and to be used to the fact that they can go along and vote. um
Speaker: in person in advance. And if you look at other countries that have been doing this for a long time, places like Norway, um where 80 % of their voters at their parliamentary election actually did vote in advance of polling day. and 20 percent voted so 20 voted on polling day so as i say i think there is huge potential there but it does take time to bed in and i also think that it there are other challenges other than just can we open a polling station earlier than than polling day itself.
Speaker: As I've said. all along the pilot that we did that worked for us. Cambridge is a very small urban area, which means that you know electronic registers that are talking to each other between you know from one side of the city to the other, they've got good Wi -Fi, they've got good 5G.
Speaker: but where you go to very rural areas that have that have more difficulty with that where you've got you know the pen irons in between um you're not going to get that kind of connectivity so there are other challenges for areas that aren't like Cambridge.
Speaker: And I do think that if... This was introduced in the UK. There needs to be. Um, It really does need to be thought of carefully and and it's not a one size fits all answer because every local authority has got these different demographics and and everybody works differently um to try and suit that.
Speaker: Hmm. I think you're absolutely spot on there, Vicky, and I even think... as we do this series on how to increase turnout and think about these new and interesting ways. that's completely what it is is actually these different areas in the UK. need different things and that's kind of what this series is all about, about finding those specific niches for those areas.
Speaker: one thing that you mentioned there which was fascinating in my research was the electronic registrations that you used. I wonder if you can offer some insight into how this works and kind of what it is.
Speaker: Well, there are IT people that are far more knowledgeable about this than me, but um on ah on a really basic level. so um the the register of electors for that. for those three days was stored in the cloud.
Speaker: and um it meant that each tablet in each of the three voting hubs that we had could could talk. to the cloud and talk to each other. and Because obviously one of the concerns around this was, you know, is it going to be secure? Are are people going to attempt to do double voting? We didn't want somebody walking into one hub.
Speaker: and voting and then obviously walk in cycling across to the next hub and trying to vote again so the tablets were constantly talking to each other to make sure that people didn't vote twice and in fact we had no incidences of that in Cambridge I think across all of the four local authorities that piloted um In May there was only one attempt at double voting and because of everything that had been put in place that was picked up and it wasn't it wasn't allowed to happen.
Speaker: um So. It's a really interesting technology. it's It's not something that we use. day to day. We still use paper registers on polling day. But for the for the early voting, it was obviously really crucial that...
Speaker: Because any voter could vote in any hub on any of those three days. It was really important that the technology behind it worked, which it did. But as I say, the the logistics of that are a little bit above my... Take care.
Speaker: Okay. Well, me and you, Vicky, me and you. So the Electoral Commission identified an area of concern being awareness of that this early version was even going on they had the statistics saying that motor hubs in Cambridge, there was 57 % of people were aware and which is relatively high, but this dropped to 22 % in the Welsh pilots which took place in 2022.
Speaker: Is this? Is the issue around awareness something that we should... be seriously worried about or is it something that kind of fixes itself as it becomes more deployed. I think, again, is no there's not an easy answer to that. um um I mean Cambridge did have the highest awareness of the four pilot authority areas. and most of those people who did the survey after they had voted.
Speaker: said that that was due to, we we put a leaflet in with the poll cards, we put a lovely bright coloured leaflet in that said did you know you can vote early this year and most of the awareness in Cambridge came from that.
Speaker: um So I think there is a little bit of work to be done on how do we communicate this to people. um you know what is the way to do that social media is obviously one way to do that but there's and that's a whole different argument that's a whole different discussion isn't it about what social media has uh influence has on elections um you know do we um We also employed.
Speaker: um cyclists to cycle around the city on those three days with banners that said you can vote early today just to give people that extra money so yes there needs to be some thought in terms of the communication that's done with it but it is also something that will hopefully evolve over time and I think if we had done the pilot again next May um we might have seen a slight increase in all of those numbers.
Speaker: But interestingly, I did speak to a number of people who said. I knew it was happening, but I shows I still chose to go and vote on polling day because that's what I wanted to do and that comes back to Making voting more accessible and flexible and giving people the choice to do it how they want whether that's in person on polling day in an early voting hub or by post or proxy.
Speaker: Hmm. One area which I alluded to at the start is the possibility of using early voting. measures overseas so as we said at the start kind of used in Finland and Australia and currently citizens abroad can only vote via postal proxy and after the government's election act of 2022 there's been a massive increase in franchisement of people overseas who can vote.
Speaker: Is that something which... There is discussion of of maybe copying what's used in Australia and Finland.
Speaker: It's a really interesting concept and I have to say if there's discussions happening, they're not happening anywhere near me. Um, I think it's Talking about it in you know in terms of domestic voting, how we actually do it in in the UK, it's a lot more complex to be able to do that.
Speaker: And it. kind of goes through to the whole question of that the electoral legislation itself needs um it needs a massive overhaul because the timetable as it sits, you know, we have such a short amount of time to run ah a parliamentary election.
Speaker: And to be able to then. make sure that people can vote abroad. as well. um you know that it just feels um you know how logistically that would be able to happen um I mean you talked about you know doing it through embassies. I don't know.
Speaker: If. people would travel to an embassy to to to go and get their vote because again that's if that's i think somewhere like australia where they've got i think five embassies there and um British embassies, British consulates, you know, but there's nothing in Adelaide. So if you lived in Adelaide, you wouldn't you you wouldn't travel to Sydney or wherever to go and vote. so Perhaps it's one of those things about giving people choice.
Speaker: um you know but there's a lot of more it's while it's There's other ways, I think, that we should look at how British citizens are abroad vote. I mean, in Cambridge, we've got a very large number at the moment. We've got over 1600 overseas electors that are living um outside the UK and voting in the Cambridge area.
Speaker: um Most of them have postal votes, quite a few have got proxy votes, quite a few of them don't have either. they they come back to the UK to vote on polling day. um I think. ah you know and again this this is another discussion around should we go down the word, you know, e -voting, online voting.
Speaker: I think overseas electors probably are the prime. area of people to look at in terms of Can we do voting online? But again, you've got a lot of security integrity issues around that and all the the discussion that comes with that. So could it work overseas? Could overseas work?
Speaker: work through embassies potentially, but it not as it stands because the the the logistics of doing it in that really short parliamentary timetable. are quite scary frankly. And... i guess coming to the end of our conversation which has been absolutely fascinating vicky Where do you see, I guess we touched on a little bit at just there, but where do you see early voting being most effective? Because I look at the possibility of 16 year olds being able to vote and whether early voting could be
Speaker: used in schools for example. Uh, Yeah, I mean, actually, one of the interesting statistics that came out of our pilot is that around 30 five forty five percent % of the early voters were in that young age group so they obviously found that easier and of course we've got a huge amount of students in Cambridge so for them to be able to vote when it's convenient for them around their lectures.
Speaker: surely again that that should give them more opportunities to do it should they want to um
Speaker: I think that early voting... does have a place. But i I think it shouldn't it should not be a bolt on to what we've got. I mean, let as I said, electoral legislation has been tinkered. with you know all the time I've worked in it which is nearly 30 years now so There's always been something that's been changing.
Speaker: and it it needs a complete overhaul the whole lot there's a huge number of acts secondary legislation Good. govern elections and you know different rules for different elections it's it's quite confusing so the whole thing is looking at and to introduce early voting by just going well here you go You can and have some early voting now. I don't think that needs to work.
Speaker: in those countries that do have early voting. they don't have 15 hours of polling on polling day like we do so does that need to be looked at do we need 15 hours of polling if people have had three days two days or whatever to do it earlier um and and how do you manage the election timetable um the the deadline for um candidates to get their nominations in.
Speaker: gives the printing companies and us a very short window of time to produce ballot papers and by introducing early voting what you're doing is making that you know you're taking a week essentially off of the amount of time you've got to print ballot papers ready for early voting so the logistics of it are complicated and um you know the whole thing needs to be looked at so yes early voting I think it's a great idea. I think that it was a really great experience for us in Cambridge.
Speaker: But it it can't just say, well, it's it works and let's do it like that. It needs a lot more thought. I'm really pleased there's more pilots happening in 2027 and hopefully across.
Speaker: more rural areas and and areas that are very different demographics to us.
Speaker: Well, thank you. That's all we have time for. Thank you very much, Vicky, for joining me on the podcast. I thought you really offered kind of. and insight into the nuts and bolts. of what it's like to kind of run in an election and what early voting actually means all the way from the printer to then actually casting the palette.
Speaker: Thank you very much. yeah It's been great fun. Thanks for having me. You can listen to the Democracy Volunteers podcast across all your major streaming apps. I've been your host Joshua Paisley. and Thank you for listening.
