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How Can We Cross the Voting Desert?

Posted on: Tuesday, 18 October 2005, 06:00 CDT

By Harriet Harman

There really can't be that much wrong with our democracy. After all, I've once again been elected as Member of Parliament for Camberwell and Peckham. And how bad can the problems of democracy be if, every morning, a Ministerial car purrs outside my front door?

Unfortunately, in reality there is a great problem with our democracy. MPs and Ministers have a disincentive to acknowledge this: if something is wrong with democracy, could it mean that we are less than perfect? As Members of Parliament and Ministers we must avoid the temptation of being comfortable presiding over decline. The system might be working for us, but democracy does not exist for its representatives, it exists for the people. A sizeable and growing number who are simply walking away from it - and while democracy seems to be alive and well amongst the better off, the poorer you are, the less likely you are to vote.

The legitimacy of our democracy depends on three things: everyone having the right to vote; everyone wanting to vote; and no-one fiddling the vote. On the first, the DCA Select Committee and the Electoral Commission estimate that about three million of the poorest do not have the right to vote because they are not on the electoral register. On the second, in those under-registered communities there is low participation in elections - which means that in some areas representatives are elected by just 20 per cent of those eligible to vote. And on the third, though everyone agrees that electoral fraud is extremely rare, it must be dealt with emphatically to ensure confidence in the result of elections.

There is no 'magic bullet' for renewing democracy.

But we must face the scale of the problem and reach for as many measures as possible that will reverse the decline.

Much of this has to do with raw politics and the work of politicians and political parties. People need to believe that there is a real choice in elections, that they can see competing vision and ideology and can vote with a sense of optimism.

There is also evidence that the more people are properly involved and consulted between elections, the more likely they are to think that voting is worthwhile. That's why initiatives like The Home Office's Together We Can programme and Patricia Hewitt's Department of Health 'You health, your care, your say' consultation are so important.

However, there are also flaws in the system and r at the Department of Constitutional Affairs (mission statement 'justice, rights and democracy') we are doing what we can to sort the system out.

Our Electoral Administration Bill contains measures to ensure that fewer people are excluded from the electoral register and that there are tougher measures to prevent fraud.

To tackle the problem of the 'democracy deserts' of low registration and low participation, we are making sure that all electoral administrators do everything they can to catch up with the 'hard-to-register'. That will mean anything from fighting their way past entryphones in council estates to doing data-checks to identify who's living where.

When people go to vote and find they are not on the register they protest furiously 'but the council know I'm there, they sent me a council tax bill yesterday!' We cannot stand by when one in five voters in London are, according to the Electoral Commission, not onthe electoral register and the likelihood of being on the register is greatest if you are older, a home owner and white and least if you are black, a council tenant and young.

We have to be as open as possible about the debate. We have already introduced proportional representation for elections to the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, the Greater London Authority and the European Parliament. The debate about whether we should change the way we elect our MPs is ongoing and my Department is reviewing how the new electoral systems are working in practice and, in particular, whether there is any evidence that they increase participation.

Renewing democracy probably requires a re-invention of the role of MPs. There are questions which need asking. Should the ballot paper have the picture of all the candidates as well as the name of the candidate the name of the party and party symbol?

Should MPs write an annual report for our constituents? Why don't we tell electors who has been elected, how to contact them and what services the body to which they have been elected is responsible for? To find out who your new councillor is after next May's election you will have to ring up the council, give your address and ask. Or if you know which ward you are in (which most people don't) you can scan the local papers.

We have to do this in as bi-partisan way as possible. The Opposition (and government backbenchers) will, and have a perfect right to, criticise our proposals. Were any government to use this set of issues for party advantage the public would, quite rightly, be appalled. We have to be clear that this is a priority for a government that believes in equality as well as democracy. Democracy suffers if participation falls. But a Labour government has to make the mission to renew democracy a priority when it is the poor who are turning their back on it and finding themselves left out by the 'mother of democracies

Source: Birmingham Post; Birmingham (UK)

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