Compulsory voting in elections, handing 16 year olds the vote and greater devolution have been proposed by MPs as ways to deal with the ‘crisis’ facing democracy in the UK.
Other ideas include giving voters the option to abstain or vote for ‘none of the above’ in order to boost turnout.
The political and constitutional reform select committee has urged all parties to include proposals in their manifestos.
‘Our democracy is facing a crisis if we do not take urgent action to make elections more accessible to the public and convince them that it is worth voting,’ said committee chair Graham Allen.
‘Turnout for the last general election was only 65%—almost 16 million voters chose not to participate—and millions of people are not even registered to vote. This is not an acceptable state of affairs for a modern democracy.’
He said the 85% turnout for the referendum on Scottish independence had demonstrated that ‘people will turn out if they care about an issue and believe they can make a difference’.
Moving forward on decentralisation and devolution would help the electorate to ‘engage much more in deciding their own affairs’, according to the committee’s report.
Mr Allen added: ‘Our report on voter engagement considers some radical changes, like compulsory voting, online voting, and extending the franchise to younger people, because we believe a serious problem needs serious answers. We hope our report shows that Parliament is waking up to this issue by calling for radical change.’
