Dr Sophie Gallop, Senior Lecturer NLS , https://www.ntu.ac.uk/staff-profiles/law/sophie-gallop
The right to vote, also known as suffrage or political franchise, is fundamental to democracy. Hopefully everyone reading this blog article who was eligible to do so exercised that right last week on 4th July, regardless of who you voted for.
The right to vote forms part of the broader right to free elections, a right recognised in Article 3 of Protocol 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights, and in Article 25(b) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
According to Article 3 of Protocol 1:
The High Contracting Parties undertake to hold free elections at reasonable intervals by secret ballot, under conditions which will ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people in the choice of the legislature.
Similarly, Article 25(b) provides:
Every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity… To vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the electors;
According to both of these human rights there is a right to vote in a secret ballot, which requires that the voter’s identity in an election remains anonymous, thereby protecting against voter intimidation or voter bribery. Both Conventions also make reference to a time period that elections must be held; Protocol 1 of the European Convention states that elections should be held at ‘reasonable intervals’, whilst Article 25(b) is less specific, only requiring that elections should be ‘periodic’. However, both note that the right to free elections is a fundamental part of the right to free expression of the opinion of voters to elect their democratic representatives.
In the UK the right to vote, and the respective restrictions to that right, can be found across various statutes. The Representation of the People Act 1918 abolished all property qualifications for men and enfranchised some women over 30 years old to vote, who met minimum property qualifications (including being registered property occupiers of land or premises with a rateable value greater than £5). It was not until 10 years later in 1928 when the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act was enacted that women in Britain were given electoral equality with men. Then, in 1969 the Representation of the People Act extended suffrage to all those over the age of 18 years old, lowering the voting age from 21 years. The result is that today, the right to vote in the UK has been extended to all genders over the age of 18 years. However, there are restrictions on this right, some necessary and some perhaps less so.
Legal Impediments to Voting
Whilst there has been a general trend in extending voting rights, more recent legislation has operated to make voting more difficult. Famously in 2022, voting requirements were changed in the UK under the Elections Act and now all those voting in UK Parliamentary elections, local or by-elections, and Police and Crime Commissioner elections must provide an accepted form of photo ID. At the time the Elections Act was in the House of Commons as a Bill, research was presented showed that these requirements may result in 1.1 million fewer voters at the next general election compared to the previous election if trends followed those in Northern Ireland after the introduction of voter ID requirements there. There has not been any data on the total number of voters in the 2024 elections as yet, so we do not yet know what impact if any the Elections Act’s voter ID requirements had on voter numbers, if indeed there was any. It is important to acknowledge that any lower voter turnout recorded may not be as a direct result of the new voter ID requirements, and may be as a result of voter disillusionment etc.
Concerns were also raised about the disproportionate impact that mandatory voter ID would have on groups with protected characteristics, in particular voters with disabilities, voters who are members of the LGBT+ community, black and minority ethnic voters, and older voters. Groups like the RNIB (the Royal National Institute for the Blind) commented that the voter ID requirement would ‘disproportionately disenfranchise blind and partially sighted people, particularly older blind and partially sighted people’. Similarly, the Royal Mencap Society raised concerns that ‘voter ID could simply result in yet another barrier to people with a learning disability participating in elections’. Similar concerns were raised by the LGBT+ Foundation about the ability of transgender voters and non-binary voters to access appropriate forms of ID. The Runnymede Trust noted that members of Black and Ethnic Minority groups were already less likely to be registered to vote and were significantly less likely to hold forms of ‘acceptable’ ID such as a driving license. Finally, Age UK highlighted that, according to the government’s own research, 6% of people over the age of 70 would have problems presenting the right kind of ID at the polling station. Data on the impact that voter ID requirements has had on groups with protected characteristics is unlikely to be available for some time, and given the secret ballot requirements noted above, it is highly unlikely that we will ever be able to get very precise data on this impact.
Practical Impediments to Voting
Alongside new legal impediments to voting, there are also practical obstacles to voting in many instances. In the recent general election was the fact that thousands of postal votes were delayed or went undelivered. There were multiple reports of postal votes arriving well after the deadline, particularly but by no means exclusively for British emigrants living in Europe. In Scotland this issue proved to be particularly acute as the earlier school holidays meant that many families with school aged children had travelled abroad before their postal vote arrived, therefore depriving them of their ability to vote. The situation was so serious in the capital that Edinburgh City Council set up an emergency facility for lost and delayed postal votes.
Why were there so many issues delivering postal votes on time? There were various reasons given. For those voting from Europe, Brexit-related bureaucracy seems to have been to blame for some of the delays. The fact that the election was called at short notice exacerbated challenges in this regard. The Deputy Chief Executive of Association of Electoral Administrators (AEA) noted that the short-term turnaround needed to print votes had caused significant problems, especially given that many staff were away on pre-planned holidays. These problems were exacerbated by ‘print and delivery suppliers working at capacity’ and increased demand for postal votes, up 20% on the 2019 election.
To prevent these kinds of failures recurring in the future the AEA have called for wholesale changes to the voting system. Firstly, they have complained that the current framework of law of voting is fragmented and argued that there are various reforms needed. They have also proposed a change to various election deadlines. Under current laws, the Prime Minister only has to provide a 25-day notice period for a general election (then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak provided around 42-days notice for this election) per Schedule 1 of the Representation of People Act 1983, which the AEA has said must be extended to a minimum of 30 days to allow them to adequately prepare ballot papers, administration, printing, and distribution. The AEA has also argued that deadlines for registering for postal votes and other absent voting mechanisms would also help them manage the voting system in the 21st century. However, any reforms that require voters to register earlier will likely disfranchise future voters who miss or cannot meet those new deadlines.
Conclusions
There are reasons to be concerned about the various impediments to voting in the UK and their impact on our human right to vote.
The outworkings of the Elections Act 2022 have been shown to have a disproportionate impact on the right of vulnerable minority groups to engage in the democratic process.
There are also wider concerns about the practical limitations within the current electoral system. As various shortcomings in the postal voting system last week illustrated, with inherent weakness being made more problematic in the context of a snap election.
Yet, despite all of these valid concerns, it is important to acknowledge how far we have come. Less than a hundred years ago I, as a woman, could not vote. More than 54 years ago, most of our undergraduate students (being under the age of 21) would not be able to vote. Whilst there is not a legal requirement to vote in the UK, there is arguably a moral one. It is a right that has been so hard-earned by so many people who went before us, who sacrificed so much to ensure that we get to contribute to democracy. So, as I noted at the beginning, I hope all readers who could use their legal right to vote last week did so, and if not that they do so in every election in the future.
Further Reading:
Lisa O’Carroll ‘Change postal voting laws to ease pressure on system, say UK election organisers’ (The Guardian 4 July 2024)
Lisa O’Carroll, Caroline Bannock, and Rachel Obordo ‘Thousands fear they will lose vote in UK election after postal ballot delays’ (The Guardian 1 July 2024)
For more on the limitations to the right to a secret ballot whilst voting as a blind person see ITV News ‘General Election: Blind Voters say they’re still struggling to cast their vote privately’
For more on the impact of voter ID requirements on voter disfranchisement see Electoral Reform Society ‘Over one million people at risk of not having voter ID on election day’
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