Voter Turnout in Birmingham

By Emily Quiney, MA in International Law, Ethics and Politics at University of Birmingham

The average turnout in the UK for the 2024 general election was 59.7%.[1] The estimated average turnout in Birmingham was 50%.[2] The average turnout in local elections in England in 2023 was 30% and the average turnout for the 2022 Birmingham local election was 28%.[3][4] This means that in Birmingham's recent elections many people have not cast their vote. I researched two potential causes for this - voter apathy and political inequality.  

Voter apathy is disinterest in, or a pessimistic attitude towards, voting. Whilst the term may describe a feeling some have towards voting, it is a term I feel places the responsibility solely with the voter and does not address any systematic issues that may be holding people back from voting.  

Political inequality relates to systemic barriers to political participation such as a lack of political education and a lack of political representation. A lack of representation in the form of gender, race, class and age can make voters belonging to underrepresented groups feel as though politics doesn’t speak to their needs and can create distrust between communities and politicians.[5] 

To asses the impact of voter apathy and political inequality in Birmingham I looked into whether that is a correlation between economic deprivation and voter turnout, as well as attitudes towards voting in Birmingham. Ultimately, my aim is to identify solutions to combat low voter turnout across the city. Considering the large scope of this research, the large population and size of the city and the timeframe, I feel as though my research has only scratched the surface on this important challenge.  

I found that the Shard End ward has the lowest turnout and a high level of deprivation and so I interviewed members of a community group and a volunteer at a community centre in Shard End the day before the general election. They expressed a sense of political fatigue and one member of the community group said that they had not voted since 1997 which correlates with the national downward trend in turnout across the UK. The interviewees highlighted the Council's bankruptcy and cuts to public services as contributing to their lack of interest in voting. Sentiments of distrust, lacking confidence in, or feeling abandoned by, the political system have also been noted in several academic studies.[6] 

Whilst Shard End has both high levels of deprivation and low voter turnout the picture was less clear across the City with not clear pattern between levels of deprivation and turnout. However, my research suggested that areas with younger populations were more likely to have lower voter turnout. Therefore I asked the Ward Councillor for Cotteridge and Bournville why they thought young people in particular may not feel inclined to vote. She cited a lack of civic education in schools as well as a lack of policies appealing to younger demographics.

When I was at sixth form I was fortunate enough to go on a trip to the House of Parliament where we learned about the history of UK politics and how our political system works. This however is not something everyone gets the opportunity of doing and many people leave school with no political or civic education. A study conducted by the Political Studies Association found that “Citizenship and political education remains marginalised by schools”.[7] I did not gather any data relating to whether there was a significant lack of political education in Birmingham’s school this would be an interesting point of further study.  

We have the privilege of being able to vote; something that for some of us throughout history wasn’t always the case. I understand the helplessness and political fatigue we can feel when we don’t think things will change or how it feels to not fully understand how our political system works. More need to be done to gain back trust in our political systems and to encourage greater political education - the emphasis can't just be on individual voters. Low voter turnout threatens our democracy. As citizens we still need to use our voices and votes, but we need the system to educate us and enthuse us to do so.

You can read the full report here:

Political Inequality in Birmingham.pdf

Download PDF • 12.11MB

References:  

 [1] Sturge, G. (2024) House of Commons Library. ‘2024 General Election Turnout’. accessed from: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/general-election-2024-turnout/ 

[2] Worked out by author; data accessed from: https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/info/50341/4_july_2024_election 

[3] Worked out by author; data accessed from: https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/info/20097/elections_and_voting/2558/local_election_results 

[4] Uberoi, E. (2023) House of Commons Library. ‘Turnout at elections’. Accessed from: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8060/ 

[5] Ansell, B and Gingrich, J. (2022) IFS. ‘Political inequality: The IFS Deaton Review of Inequalities’. Accessed from: https://ifs.org.uk/publications/political-inequality 

[6] Kings College London. (2023). ‘UK has internationally low confidence in political institutions, police and press’. Accessed from: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/uk-has-internationally-low-confidence-in-political-institutions-police-and-press 

[7] Weinberg, J. (2019) Political Studies Association. ‘Politics in schools ‘what exists and what works?’ accessed from: https://www.psa.ac.uk/resources/politics-schools-what-exists-and-what-works