Who can vote for what bodies?

Amongst the many comments about the elections this week and the problems many EU Citizens raised was the fact that their names appeared on the paper registers at polling stations but crossed through. Why was this?

The basic answer is that the election register combines six different categories of voters with differing entitlements to vote in different elections. All qualified voters who have registered and can vote in at least one set of elections appear are on the list but those ineligible to vote at the election in question at the polling station in question are crossed out.

More detail required? Sure.

Broadly there are three different franchises in this country:

• The local & devolved government franchise for electing councils, police & crime commissioners and devolved parliaments & assemblies.
• The Westminster franchise for electing the House of Commons.
• The European Parliament franchise for electing members of the European Parliament.

(I'll come to referendums later in the post.)

Due to the different voting entitlements of ex pats, EU citizens and members of the House of Lords there are six different categories of voters with various combinations of franchise. For operational simplicity a single electoral roll is maintained but has to indicate the differing eligibility. If you see a register you will note that some voters' names have letters next to them; these indicate the different categories. These are as follows:

• (No letter) - Citizens of the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Commonwealth countries (including Cyprus and Malta) who have all three franchise.
• E - Ex pat members of the House of Lords who have the European Parliament franchise only.
• F - Ex pats who moved abroad from the United Kingdom in the last fifteen years who have the Westminster and European Parliament franchises (in the constituency of their last registered address) but not the local government franchise.
• G - Citizens of other European Union countries (excluding the Republic of Ireland, Cyprus and Malta covered above) who only have the local government franchise unless they've completed a further stage...
• K - Citizens of other European Union countries (excluding the Republic of Ireland, Cyprus and Malta covered above) who have completed, returned & had processed a formal declaration to state that they will be exercising their vote for the European Parliament in the United Kingdom and not in their country of citizenship, and thus have both the local government franchise and the European Parliament franchise.
• L - Members of the House of Lords who have both the local government franchise and the European Parliament franchise but not the Westminster franchise for the House of Commons.

(The document for converting from "G" to "K" is called the UC1 form, although annoyingly not on the form itself, or the "European Union citizens – European Parliament voter registration form (GB)" in Great Britain and the EC6 form, a code that does appear on it, or the "EUROPEAN UNION CITIZENS - EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT VOTER REGISTRATION FORM (NI)" in Northern Ireland.)

There are also two letters relating to how votes cast:

• A - Indicates a voter who has applied for a postal vote and thus cannot vote at the polling station.
• P - Proxy - a vote has proxied their vote for someone else to cast it on their behalf.

To summarise by franchise:

• Local & devolved government - (No letter), G, K, L
• Westminster - (No letter), F
• European Parliament - (No letter), E, F, K, L

Referendums usually use the same franchise as the relevant body in question though there have been some variations. Votes on various council matters or devolution use the local & devolved franchise. The AV and Brexit referendums used the Westminster franchise plus members of the House of Lords (E & L), with the latter also enfranchising voters in Gibraltar.

The standard election registers have all registered voters across the six categories listed. The copies for polling stations are printed so that all names appear but those unable to vote in a particular election are crossed out. As well as the categories of voters ineligible at the election, also crossed out are people with postal votes (A) and people on the register under the age of 18 on polling day.

This arrangement helps staff quickly identify the reason why a person will not be able to vote there, albeit at the expense of potentially confusing ineligible voters who may not understand why they can't vote when their name is on this list.

The problems relating to EU Citizens and the declaration forms to convert their category from G to K is such a big subject that it would take a separate post. However looking at some of the reported letters and phone calls, it seems that a lot of wording has not distinguished between someone appearing on the combined register for elections in general and having had the specifics processed for European Parliament elections.

Who can and can't vote for what?

There's been a lot of nonsense today about how various people are being "denied" [sic] or "given" the vote in the forthcoming European Union referendum and it's clear some of the complaints stem from mistaken belief about who can and can't currently vote. So here's a quick rundown.

British citizens over the age of 18 resident in the United Kingdom have the right to vote for the House of Commons, the devolved Parliaments (when they reside in Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales), local councils and the European Parliament.

The only exceptions are:

• Members of the House of Lords (including, I think, those who've retired from it) who cannot vote for the House of Commons but can for devolved Parliaments (when they reside in Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales), local councils and the European Parliament.
• Convicted prisoners who have no vote at all for the duration of their sentences
• Certified "lunatics" have no vote at all
• People who have not registered themselves to vote

Citizens of other Commonwealth countries plus citizens of the Republic of Ireland over the age of 18 resident in the United Kingdom can vote for the House of Commons, the devolved Parliaments (when they reside in Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales), local councils and the European Parliament. Indeed on the register I have in front of me there's no distinction whatsoever.

British citizens over the age of 18 who reside abroad and who left the United Kingdom within the last fifteen years are entitled to vote for the House of Commons and the European Parliament, with their vote allocated to the constituency of their last UK address. They cannot vote for the devolved Parliaments (when they resided in Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales) or local councils.

European Union citizens over the age of 18 resident in the United Kingdom are entitled to vote for the devolved Parliaments (when they reside in Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales), local councils and the European Parliament. However to exercise their vote for the European Parliament they have to complete an additional form confirming they are exercising their vote in the UK and not in their country of citizenship. This is a bureaucratic European procedure that may be modified by 2019 regardless of the outcome of the referendum.

(This doesn't apply, as far as I know, to Cyprus, Malta and the Republic of Ireland. Their Commonwealth membership or the special UK legislation trumps their EU membership in this regard.)

Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory that is part of the European Union via the UK's membership. Citizens in Gibraltar over the age of 18 can vote for the European Parliament as part of the South West England constituency. They also have franchise rights in Gibraltar's own elections.

As you can see from this list there are actually a lot of different potential electorates (the register I have here has no less than six codes for different types of voter) and this can create myths about who can and can't vote already.

In terms of who gets to vote in referendums, this depends on the legislation for each individual vote. At some point it would be better if Parliament passed some standing legislation to set this down in advance rather than have these rows each time.

Most referendums since the late 1990s onwards have been about either devolution or aspects of local government and have used the local government franchise. The Scottish separation referendum had special provision for 16 and 17 year olds to vote.

The AV referendum was on the House of Commons franchise except that members of the House of Lords were also able to vote; overall this was because this was a decision with would otherwise have been taken by the Westminster Parliament.

The European Union membership referendum has similarly been announced as using the House of Commons franchise plus the House of Lords and also Gibraltar. In other words pretty much the people who would otherwise have elected or voted in the Parliament that would otherwise take the decision. Oddly I've seen almost no comment about Gibraltar compared to all the talk about European Union citizens or Commonwealth citizens.

And apart from one referendum in Scotland, 16 and 17 year olds have never had the vote.

So all this talk of "denying" and "disenfranchising" voters is nonsense. They don't have the relevant vote anyway.

So where have the Conservatives failed to recover?

With the dust of the general election now settled, attention is turning in so many quarters to analysing where each party succeeded and failed. Invariably there has been a lot of different interpretations and arguments, with some based on false assumptions about the actual breakdown of the party's vote base. But there are some studies out there if people know where to look.

Over on LabourList Declan Gaffney has written Immigration and the leadership debate: Time for a reality check which addresses the question of how strong the Labour vote has been amongst the various social groups over recent elections, using figures from Mori. It is rare to find insight on Conservative electoral problems on a Labour blog, but the following caught my eye:

The main reason Labour didn't do even worse in terms of the popular vote in May 2010 is that the Conservatives failed yet again to make a breakthrough among more affluent demographics. It is worth reminding ourselves of how catastrophic 1997 was for the Tories' relationship with what had previously been the bedrock of their support. In 1992, they held 54% of votes in the ABC1 demographics; in 1997 this was down to 39%, which is also the share they won in 2010. The Conservatives have never recovered from their loss of better-off voters in 1997. But they have regained the share of low income voters they held in 1992.

There has been an ongoing mini-realignment away from the traditional class based voting over the past few decades which has seen the middle classes slowly swing leftwards whilst other social groups swing to the right - it's often forgotten that in the 1980s Thatcherism was repelling chunks of the traditional Conservative vote base (some, but not all, public sector professionals) even as it was attracting in others.

The main historic data set can be found at Ipso Mori: How Britain Voted Since October 1974 and the 2010 data is at How Britain Voted in 2010.

Looking at this data shows some interesting conclusions about the three main categories used and how each is voting.

Amongst "Semi/unskilled working class (DE)", the Conservatives polled 31%, the same share as in 1992 and higher than anything since. That share crashed to 21% in 1997 but rose to 24% in 2001 and then 25% in 2005. Under Thatcher the Conservatives had polled 34%, 33% and 30% successively. Labour still led amongst the DEs in 2010 with 40%, the lowest share in at least 36 years (and probably a lot longer). The Liberal Democrats polled 17%, slightly down on the 18% in 2005. Historically they've bobbed between 13% and 24% over the period.

Amongst "Skilled working class (C2)", the Conservatives polled 37%, the highest since 1992, whilst Labour polled 29%, the lowest in the 36 year period. The Lib Dems polled 22%, the same as in 1987, and only polled higher in 1983. Looking over the past elections the Conservatives made a major advance here in 1979, drawing level with Labour and then leading or levelling for the next three elections. There was a crash in 1997 with the Labour lead jumping to 23%, but the Conservatives have steadily advanced since from 27% to 29% to 33% to 37%, whilst Labour declined from 50% to 49% to 40% to 29%, and on this occasion the Conservatives took the lead. But it is a lead that has built up over time.

But it's amongst "Middle class (ABC1)", that the figures tell a different story. The Conservatives polled 39% in 2010 - the same as in 1997. And the long term figures show a big change. The Conservatives went from getting consistently in the mid 50s from 1974 until 1992, then crashed to 39% in 1997. But the worst followed, dropping to 38% in 2001 and 37% in 2005. Meanwhile Labour may have got only 27% of ABC1 in 2010, but that's still a better score for them than anything from before the Blair era. Labour polled between 16% and 24% between 1974 and 1992, then jumped to 34% in 1997 and held the same in 2001. In 2005 it slipped to 30% and then dropped to 27% this time. The beneficiaries in all this have been the Liberal Democrats who got 26%, their joint highest since 1983. Back then they polled 28% but declined steadily to 26% to 21% to 20% by 1997, only to see a turn of fortunes with 22% in 2001 and 26% in 2005. This time round they may not have advanced but they didn't fall back.

The small growth in votes for "others" slightly distorts things but the overall figures show that amongst both the C2s and DEs the Conservatives have basically recovered to their 1992 position. For those who want a stunning but true quote try "David Cameron did better amongst the DEs than Margaret Thatcher in her final election."

It's the complete failure to recover the lost ground amongst the ABC1s that remains the Conservatives' biggest stumbling ground. Whilst there was some advance amidst Labour's fall, it was only a small amount. The best that can be said is that the bleeding has been stemmed and more ground has not been lost, which is an improvement on the outcome of the Hague and Howard strategies. Indeed these figures suggest that a hard-line campaign like those fought in 2001 & 2005 would have just continued the Conservative decline here. But there has been a realignment to the benefit of both Labour and the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives need to find ways of either overturning this effect or compensating for it with more advances amongst the C2s and DEs.

"More money for electoral administration!" or "Fewer elections at the same time!"?

The Election Law Channel: It’s administrative blunders, not fraud, which should worry us most is right - no-one ever campaigns for the council on the first slogan above (well not successfully anyway). And I agree you have to have some sympathy with election officials at various levels who are asked to do a difficult job without adequate resources.

One of the big news stories about the election was the number of people who didn't get to vote despite queueing for a very long time, hours in some cases. Why this happened in some places and not others hasn't received so much attention but it seems clear to me this was a failing at the local level. Calling for the head of the chair of the Electoral Commission will achieve nothing here.

The basic problem seems to be rooted at the level of the polling stations, with failure to cope with higher than anticipated demand. But was it simply more voters than predicted or were the voters taking longer than expected?

Looking at the various lists of places where there were problems I wondered if it was connected to having local elections on the same day and whether or not this was the first time in a while. Taking The Election Law Channel's list of places, we find the following:

• Birmingham - Yes, first since 1979(?)
• Chester - No
• Hackney - Yes, first ever, also elected Mayor
• Islington - Yes, first ever
• Leeds - Yes, first since 1979(?)
• Lewisham - Yes, first ever, also elected Mayor
• Liverpool - Yes, first since 1979(?)
• Manchester - Yes, first since 1979
• Newcastle - Yes, first since 1979(?)
• Sheffield - Yes, first since 1979(?)
• Weybridge - Yes (local authority Elmbridge), first general/district since 1979(?)

Now okay Weybridge/Elmbridge had combined general and county elections in 1997, 2001 and 2005 whilst Chester is an anomaly. But in every other problem area it was the first time for at least thirty years that the general election took place on the same day as local elections. And I think this is what overwhelmed the stations.

A lot of voters will have arrived at the polling stations to be given two or even three ballot papers that included elections they’d heard very little about with voting instructions that can be different on each paper. In my home borough of Newham we have a directly elected Mayor and three members to elect in each council ward, the same set-up as in Hackney and Lewisham (both of which appear on the list above). A voter in any of these boroughs had to express a single choice on one paper, up to three simultaneous choices on a second, and two sequential preferences in different columns on a third.

Whilst Newham hasn’t appeared in reports it was clear from the counts that a huge number of voters got the voting systems muddled up with many people "over-voting" on the parliamentary election by using two or three crosses. Conversely in the council elections a lot of people used only one or two crosses (although these are still valid votes). It was also noticeable that voters were taking a good while at polling stations at times when there weren’t queues. Both of these point to a high level of voter confusion leading to many taking significantly longer than normal to cast their votes. To Newham's credit there was a campaign to emphasise the three different systems.

(As well as asking for help with understanding the ballot paper instructions, voters in some places might also have found themselves asking why they couldn’t vote for particular parties who didn’t have any candidates in some wards or boroughs. But I've not seen the indepth line-up in the areas effected.)

I suspect a lot of areas simply failed to take into account the increased requirements that stem from having multiple elections at once and this may go beyond returning officers to budgets. It’s not a case of simply shoving the usual general & local allocations together, subtracting one set of costs for polling station staff and facilities/equipment hire and adding a little to cover a) extra local ballot papers being printed to cope with the expected general turnout; and b) a bit more time for counting staff to cover separation. But I wouldn’t be surprised if some of that kind of back of beermat budgeting had been made.

The whole problem will need to be investigated in-depth and solutions found. Maybe more money and resources are needed for polling stations. Maybe there shouldn't be combined general and local elections, even if that would depress the latter's turnout. (Other countries do have them combined so the investigation should look at how they handle the problems this brings.) Maybe we shouldn't have so many different voting systems in operation at the same time (something that may get even worse if we change the system for the Commons). Or perhaps we should have a combined ballot paper and introduce a method that allows people to vote for all of a party's candidates at once if they wish. There are many possible ways to solve this but at least one is needed in time for the next elections.