Modernising elections research

On the whole, people are content with the current options they have for voting and found them straightforward, especially once they had voted a couple of times and were familiar with the process.

In-person voting is the default and preferred option for most people. Postal voting is mainly used in situations where people could not get to the polling station or were following their parents’ usual method of voting. For those who had only voted in polling stations, postal voting was perceived to take more effort and be less reliable than in-person voting. However, everyone valued that there were different methods available as, above all, people wanted everyone be able to vote with ease and confidence.

Whilst some issues were raised, such as around accessibility, there is no evidence to suggest that current voting processes are responsible for people choosing not to vote, or that people don’t vote because they do not know how to cast their vote. For most people, procedural information was seen to be readily available.

Innovations that made voting quick, convenient and physically accessible were seen as attractive by people who took part in the research. While ease of access to voting is important to people – and they therefore broadly support methods that might increase ease – there is also a strong sense that voting should not be so easy that it can be done with little thought.

People saw it as crucial that the voting process continues to feel significant and important, and that it should allow for a sense of control, shared purpose and community.

People also said that security was important and that they wanted to be certain that their vote had been counted correctly and would be stored securely.

Privacy was also seen as a key element of voting. Some people were concerned that this might be lost with innovations for voting remotely, as people may be voting with others close by.

Overall people liked the idea of online voting and saw it as being flexible, familiar to other online activities such as banking and shopping, and potentially could encourage more people to vote.

However, there were some concerns about the security of online voting; the risk of not maintaining voters’ anonymity; digital literacy; and the possibility that some people could be coerced to vote in a certain way.

Overall, people had enough information to understand how to vote, except for a small number of people who had not yet voted. 

For young people and first-time voters to feel prepared to vote, it was important for them to know about the process of voting and the electoral system, how candidates are elected, and the difference between elections.

It was said to be important for people with mental health needs or physical disabilities to have clearer information about how to get ‘extra support’ if they needed it.

People’s knowledge about the nature of different voting methods varied considerably, with proxy voting being the option people were least familiar with.

People told us that the main challenges to voting were knowing what elections were taking place and when, why it is important to vote, and how to make an informed decision about who to vote for. These challenges sometimes prevented people from voting, even though they practically knew how to cast their vote.

People often said the information available during an election was ‘overwhelming’. Some didn’t know where to start searching, others were unsure how to identify sources they could trust, and others lacked confidence in analysing information to make a decision about who to vote for.

In general, people had a desire for clear and comparable information in one place, as opposed to receiving lots of information from different sources. People also valued having ‘neutral’ sources of information about candidates and their policies from independent, non-partisan sources.