Changes in the Probability of Voter Turnout When Resiting Polling Stations: A Case Study in Brent, UK

Recent initiatives for increasing participation in UK elections have yet to replace the traditional method of in-person voting at designated polling stations. Recent research has shown that voter turnout can be sensitive to geographical factors relating to the costs of voting, such as distance travelled to the polling station; government policy has stated that accessibility is a key criterion when siting polling stations. With this paper we directly address these important issues by predicting the probability of electoral turnout to parliamentary, local, and European elections when polling stations are resited to optimal and suboptimal locations based on polling district voter density in the London Borough of Brent. The differences in these predicted probabilities show that, for some polling districts, resiting the polling place could improve the probability of turnout by up to five percentage points. These findings lead to some recommendations for future policy relating to the siting of polling places in the UK.

[1]  H. Schmitt,et al.  NINE SECOND‐ORDER NATIONAL ELECTIONS – A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE ANALYSIS OF EUROPEAN ELECTION RESULTS , 1980 .

[2]  Karlheinz Reif.  National electoral cycles and European elections 1979 and 1984 , 1984 .

[3]  B. Grofman,et al.  Measuring Compactness and the Role of a Compactness Standard in a Test for Partisan and Racial Gerrymandering , 1990, The Journal of Politics.

[4]  Michael Thrasher,et al.  Turnout in English Local Elections: An Aggregate Analysis with Electoral and Contextual Data , 1990 .

[5]  Voter turnout at the british general election of 1992: rational choice, social standing or political efficacy? , 1998 .

[6]  A. Heath,et al.  New Sources of Abstention , 1999 .

[7]  R. Johnston,et al.  ‘People Who Talk Together Vote Together’: An Exploration of Contextual Effects in Great Britain , 2000 .

[8]  S. Orford,et al.  Micro‐geography and socialization: New ways of investigating the turnout problem , 2002 .

[9]  James G. Gimpel,et al.  Political participation and the accessibility of the ballot box , 2003 .

[10]  P. Southwell,et al.  Five Years Later: A Re-Assessment of Oregon's Vote by Mail Electoral Process , 2004, PS: Political Science & Politics.

[11]  N. Nevitte,et al.  Where does turnout decline come from , 2004 .

[12]  James G. Gimpel,et al.  Distance, Turnout, and the Convenience of Voting* , 2005 .

[13]  H. G. Knotts,et al.  Location, Location, Location: Precinct Placement and the Costs of Voting , 2005, The Journal of Politics.

[14]  Keith Dowding,et al.  Is it Rational to Vote? Five Types of Answer and a Suggestion , 2005 .

[15]  James G. Gimpel,et al.  Location, knowledge and time pressures in the spatial structure of convenience voting , 2006 .

[16]  A. Gelman,et al.  Voting as a Rational Choice: Why and How People Vote to Improve the Well-Being of Others , 2007 .

[17]  Peter Miller,et al.  Early Voting and Turnout , 2007, PS: Political Science & Politics.

[18]  Michael Thrasher,et al.  The turnout ‘gap’ and the costs of voting – a comparison of participation at the 2001 general and 2002 local elections in England , 2007 .

[19]  Cindy D. Kam,et al.  Beyond the Self: Social Identity, Altruism, and Political Participation , 2007, The Journal of Politics.

[20]  Maider Huarte,et al.  An Analysis of Improvements for Voter Interfaces in Polling Station and Remote Electronic Voting Systems , 2008, VISUAL.

[21]  R. Stein,et al.  Engaging the Unengaged Voter: Vote Centers and Voter Turnout , 2008, The Journal of Politics.

[22]  Michael Thrasher,et al.  Electoral salience and the costs of voting at national, sub‐national and supra‐national elections in the UK: a case study of Brent, UK , 2008 .

[23]  Michael Thrasher,et al.  Investigating Differences in Electoral Turnout: The Influence of Ward-Level Context on Participation in Local and Parliamentary Elections in Britain , 2008 .

[24]  More evidence of the effects of voting technology on election outcomes , 2009 .