As part of our focus in the run-up to the UK election, we invited Dr Stuart Fox, Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Exeter, to explore the options for improving turnout of younger voters.

Inter-generational divides have become a major feature of British politics, particularly since the EU Referendum in 2016. Clear differences in party support between young and old accompany widening divides in political priorities, social values, and financial security. These join and, to some extent, are reinforced by another intergenerational divide that shapes British politics: that in voter turnout. While young people have always been less likely to vote than their elders, and to become more likely to vote as they reach middle age, since the 1990s this gap has widened, and young people are not ‘catching up’ with the turnout of their parents as they get older. In the 1979 general election, for example, 63% of 18–24-year-olds voted; by 1992, it was holding steady at 67%; by 2001, however, it was just 40%. Things have improved a little since then, with 55% of 18–24-year-olds voting in 2019, but this still leaves the turnout of young adults well behind that of their elders. Even in the forthcoming election, only 49% of 18-24 year olds are ‘certain’ that they will vote, compared with 68% of the over-65s.

Concern about this widening divide has spurred greater interest in measures intended to encourage more young people to vote. By far the most prominent is lowering the voting age to 16 – which has already been implemented in Scotland and Wales, and is all but certain to be implemented across the UK following the general election. Also on that list are measures such as encouraging or compelling more young people to volunteer, allowing voting online and teaching citizenship education in schools. While the increased focus on such measures is welcome, however, far less interest is taken in public opinion about them, or the wider issue of low youth turnout. Do voters think, for example, that it is even a problem that young people today are less likely to vote, or do they welcome the reduced electoral influence lower turnout brings for people whose political agenda is so distinct from their own? Who do people think has the responsibility of getting more young people to the polling stations, and what measures are acceptable to them as a way of doing so? These are important questions because policies are more likely to be effective if they enjoy public support, particularly from those expected to interact with or implement them, and any attempt to engage more young people with electoral politics will require the efforts of families, communities and schools to name a few – not just government.

As part of a new project looking at public opinion about youth voter turnout, therefore, we – with the help of YouGov – asked a nationally representative sample of just over 2,000 British adults about their views of youth turnout in the upcoming 2024 general election, and their views of measures for encouraging more young people to vote.

Expectations for turnout are quite varied: 40% expect turnout on 4 July to be ‘a bit higher’ or ‘a lot higher’ than in 2019, while 30% expect it to be ‘a bit lower’ or ‘a lot lower’, and 21% expect it to be about the same. When it comes to youth turnout, 37% expect the turnout of 18–24-year-olds to be below the national average, while a sizeable minority – 29% – think young people will buck the historic trend and vote in numbers above the national average.

There is, however, a broad consensus that low youth turnout is a problem: 63% agreed it is concerning that young people today are less likely to vote, with only 10% disagreeing. What’s more, this is not a reflection of older people bemoaning the youth of today or young people frustrated that they will lose out in generational battles that play out at the ballot box: concern is similarly high across all age groups, with no less than 60% agreeing that this trend is concerning. Concern is highest, however, among young people themselves, with 69% of under-30s agreeing that low youth turnout is a problem.

Source: YouGov, 17/18 June 2024

We then asked about proposals to increase youth turnout. We asked our respondents to rate their support on a scale from 0 (meaning ‘strongly opposed’) to 10 (‘strongly support’) for lowering the voting age to 16, citizenship education in secondary schools, requiring young people to volunteer to obtain educational qualifications (as is required in Wales, for example, for the Welsh Baccalaureate), government funding for schemes promoting volunteering (such as National Citizen Service), national service for 18 year olds, allowing people to vote online and making voting compulsory for newly eligible voters.

The table below summarises the responses. By far the most popular is citizenship education, which a fifth of respondents ‘strongly support’ (i.e., scored it 10 out of 10) and to which only 4% are ‘strongly opposed’. This is followed by online voting, which 21% ‘strongly support’, though it is almost as strongly opposed by another 19% of respondents, and so is a much more divisive measure. By far the least popular measures are, ironically, those that have made it into the manifestos of the major parties for the general election. The plan to lower the voting age to 16 – supported by Labour, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, the Scottish National Party and the Greens –  is strongly supported by only 10% of voters, and strongly opposed by over a third. It is at least marginally more popular among the under-30s – with strong opposition falling to 17% and strong support rising to 15%. This is more than can be said for the Conservatives’ plan to introduce mandatory national service, to which 54% of under-30s are strongly opposed and only 1% strongly support. The most popular initiative among younger voters is citizenship education, with 27% of under-30s ‘strongly supporting’ it and only 1% ‘strongly opposed’.

Source: YouGov, 17/18 June 2024

We can see that much of the electorate, and young people most of all, are concerned about low youth turnout in the forthcoming election. This suggests that the focus given to the issue of youth electoral participation in this campaign is broadly welcomed by most. At the same time, however, the most high-profile measures intended to boost youth turnout enjoy little support. This is not a new finding—the majority of British citizens (and young people most of all) have long been opposed to both Votes at 16 and national service. There is a sad irony, however, that the signature proposals to engage more young people with politics of the UK’s major political parties evidence little attention that the views and preferences of those same young people have really been listened to.

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