Rock Enrol Tsar
Author: Jonathan Werran, the MJ |
Ministers today urged community groups to bid for a 4.2m Government cashpot made available to encourage under-represented groups to enrol on the electoral register – ahead of the greatest reform to the system for more than 70 years.
First launched by minister for political and constitutional reform, Chloe Smith at the LGA Conference held in Manchester this July, the Cabinet Office is seeking bids from bodies able to target groups such as 18 to 24 year olds and people who live in social housing.
In addition, the government is also keen to entice local organisations to bid to take part a schools outreach initiative. Entitled ‘Rock Enrol’, the programme aims to connect with 16 to 17 year olds, who although too young to vote in elections, are able to register their entitlement to vote.
The Government has formally advertised for local organisations across the country to deliver the programme, which was co-created with youth organisation Bite the Ballot. The deadline to register expressions of interest in running the programme expires on 13 August.
Research issued by the Cabinet Office today underlines that young people and social housing tenants are significantly under-represented in electoral rolls. Analysis of an Electoral Commission survey indicates private renters (56%), young people aged 17 to 18 (55%) and 19 to 24 (56%) and EU nationals (56%) are the most likely not to be registered.
However, the analysis also suggests most of these people will be matched against databases maintained by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) during the migration to Individual Electoral Registration (IER) ? which will go live in June 2014.
This verification would take place during the subsequent transition period, set to be complete to December 2015, and would involve a massive volume of activity matching households to electoral records using the DWP datasets.
Local authority Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) would be expected to trace people who are not matched by this process, and invite them to register under the new system.
Chloe Smith, Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform, said: ‘I would like to urge any organisation that has an idea for improving voter registration among young people or people in social housing to come to us and bid for some of this money.
‘Even if your charity or social enterprise is not in the business of getting people on the electoral register, your networks and expertise in your community could be invaluable in our quest to give everybody the opportunity to use their right to vote.’