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Plymouth University's Report on the 2015 UK Parliamentary Election

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Plymouth University's Report on the 2015 UK Parliamentary Election The 2015 General Election: aspects of participation and administration Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher August 2015 Elections Centre Plymouth University Plymouth PL4 8AA The 2015 General Election: aspects of participation and administration Summary The UK electorate at the 2015 general election was almost 46.4 million –the largest ever. The registers contained three-quarters of a million more names than in 2010 –an increase of 1.7%. More than a million people registered to vote in the period between the compilation of the ONS parliamentary electorate statistics based on the registers at 1st December 2014 and the general election in May. Nearly 30.7 million valid votes were cast, making the overall turnout across the UK 66.2%. This is one million more votes than in 2010, but only a 1.1 percentage point higher turnout. The ‘ballot box’ turnout which includes votes rejected at the count was 30.8 million or 66.4% of the registered electorate. Turnout rose in each country, but jumped particularly sharply in Scotland from 63.9% in 2010 to 71.1%. The number of ballot papers rejected at the count continues to be but a small fraction of the total cast (0.33%), though was a little greater than in either 2010 or 2005. There is evidence of the rejection rate being somewhat higher where voters are faced with an additional election, especially in cases where it operates under a different electoral system (e.g. in those areas with a coincident mayoral election). Almost 7.6 million postal votes were issued -16.4% of the entire electorate. This represented an increase of 1.1 percentage points and more than half a million more voters than in 2010. 85.8% of those with a postal ballot returned it. By way of contrast, only 63.2% of those electors required to vote ‘in person’ did so. The number of postal votes at the count was one in five of the total. In the North East region of England more than a third of all votes were cast by post. The proportion of postal votes rejected or otherwise not included in the count was 3.3%. It was less than in 2010 in every country of the UK. In about half the cases postal votes were rejected because a signature or date of birth (or both) were mismatched; in another quarter because the elector omitted to enclose either the ballot paper or the postal vote statement (or both). Almost 150,000 electors (0.3% of the total) appointed proxies. This was a small increase compared with 2010, concentrated especially in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The number of emergency proxy votes increased from fewer than 1,000 in 2010 to nearly 9,000 following a relaxation of the rules regarding eligibility. About three fifths of one percent of electors with a postal vote were granted a waiver to use their date of birth as their sole identifier. This is in line with levels seen at the 2014 European Parliament contests. 2 Rallings & Thrasher The 2015 general election was held on Thursday 7th May - the first to occur following the passing of the Fixed Term Parliament Act 2011. With no significant boundary changes having taken place, the same 650 constituencies were contested as in 2010 - 533 in England, 59 in Scotland, 40 in Wales, and 18 in Northern Ireland. In all, some 3,971 candidates competed at the election, a slight reduction on the record 4,150 candidates in 2010. More than 130 registered parties fielded at least one candidate together with 172 Independents. The Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats contested every seat in Great Britain except that of the Speaker; the Scottish Nationalist Party and Plaid Cymru had candidates in every seat in Scotland and Wales respectively. The Conservatives’ sister party in Northern Ireland also fielded 16 candidates. UKIP had a candidate in every seat in England and Wales, but did not fight 18 constituencies in Scotland or 8 in Northern Ireland. The Greens fought 573 seats across the UK compared with 335 in 2010. The Conservatives won an absolute majority in the House of Commons for the first time since 1992. They won 330 seats compared with 232 for Labour, 56 for the Scottish National Party, 8 each for the Liberal Democrats and Democratic Unionist Party, 4 for Sinn Fein, 3 each for Plaid Cymru and the Social Democratic and Labour Party, 2 for the Ulster Unionist Party, and one each for UKIP, the Green Party, an Independent, and The Speaker. A total of 1,570 candidates lost their deposit by failing to poll 5 per cent or more of the valid vote in their constituency. This is 40 per cent of the total number of candidates; in 2010, 46 per cent suffered this forfeit. Among the major parties Labour lost just 3 deposits and the Conservatives 18 (including 15 in Northern Ireland); the Liberal Democrats 341 (none were forfeited in 2010); UKIP 79; and the Greens 442. Electorate The electorate for the 2015 general election was, at almost 46.4 million, the largest ever. It showed an increase of over three-quarters of a million or 1.7% compared with 2010. The numerical bulk of the rise was in England, but the electorate in Scotland rose by no less than 6.1% compared with five years previously –see Table 1. The Northern Ireland electorate also increased by more than 5 per cent. It is likely that there are both political and technical issues behind these variations. The 2014 Independence referendum in Scotland prompted an unprecedented number of new applications to register: most will have remained eligible to vote at the general election. In Northern Ireland the decade long bedding in of individual as opposed to household level registration has now raised the parliamentary electorate above 1.2 million for the first time since the 2001 general election. In Wales and in most of the regions of England the electorate rose much more gradually: in the North East and North West regions it actually fell. Partly this 3 The 2015 General Election: aspects of participation and administration reflects the move towards individual electoral registration (IER) and the consequent cleansing of registers. Indeed the total general election electorate may well have been less than in 2010 save for a registration campaign conducted in the early months of 2015 highlighting the availability of online registration. Electors also took advantage of the so-called ‘12 day rule’ (introduced by the 2006 Electoral Administration Act) which allowed for registration after the election was formally called. The ONS parliamentary electorate figures published in April 2015 and based on figures as at 1st December 2014 actually showed a drop of 1.8% compared with a year earlier; a quarter of a million fewer electors than at the time of 2010 general election; and more than a million fewer electors than were eventually registered to vote on May 7th. In such circumstances it is unsurprising that the electorates in individual constituencies contain evidence of considerable volatility. There was a 10% or more growth in electors between 2010 and 2015 in 21 constituencies – 13 of them in Scotland. The largest individual increase compared with 2010 was 19.3% in Hackney North and Stoke Newington. Only one constituency (Oxford West and Abingdon) reported a reduction of over 10% in its electorate, but 13 others including both Blackpool seats saw their electorate fall by more than 5%. Table 1: Electorate at the 2015 general election Electorate Electorate Change 2010-15 %Change 2015 2010 2010-15 UK 46,354,197 45,597,461 +756,736 +1.7 GB 45,117,432 44,428,277 +689,155 +1.6 England 38,736,146 38,300,110 +436,036 +1.1 N. Ireland 1,236,765 1,169,184 +67,581 +5.8 Scotland 4,099,532 3,863,042 +236,490 +6.1 Wales 2,281,754 2,265,125 +16,629 +0.7 East Midlands 3,354,204 3,332,058 +22,146 +0.7 Eastern 4,365,302 4,257,453 +107,849 +2.5 London 5,407,830 5,276,910 +130,290 +2.5 North East 1,923,727 1,948,281 -24,554 -1.3 North West 5,230,395 5,255,192 -24,797 -0.5 South East 6,409,317 6,298,261 +111,056 +1.8 South West 4,080,772 4,020,915 +59,857 +1.5 West Midlands 4,102,205 4,084,007 +18,198 +0.4 Yorkshire & The 3,862,394 3,827,033 + 35,361 +0.9 Humber , Turnout There was a small increase in turnout compared with 2010 in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, and a much bigger rise in Scotland –see Table 2. Nevertheless, and despite the growth in the electorate, fewer than 31 million valid votes were cast: a long way short of the record of 33.6 million votes at the 1992 general election. Indeed the overall valid vote turnout of 66.2% was just 1.1 percentage points higher than in 2010 and almost 5 percentage points 4 Rallings & Thrasher lower than at any general election between 1922 and 1997 inclusive. The ‘ballot box’ turnout –see Table 6 below- was similarly 1.1 percentage points higher than in 2010 at 66.4 per cent. The turnout in Scotland exceeded 71% for the first time since 1997. Although much lower than the 84.6% recorded at the 2014 Independence Referendum, it provides further evidence of the currently greater degree of political engagement north of the border. Among the English regions, turnout fell slightly in three (East of England and both the East and West Midlands) and increased most in the North West (+2.0%).
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