Elections and voters in britain pdf

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Elections held every 2 years. Qualitative investigations give participants the opportunity to express and justify their decisions in their own words, often revealing a rich and complex tapestry of motives, influences, and determinants that cannot be captured through set responses. A main aim of the QESB is to generate qualitative longitudinal data for social science analysis. This research fills a lacuna in extant electoral research by providing information from potential voters in their own words and using their own narratives rather than selecting a pre- determined response option.

These follow on from a study conducted by Rosie Campbell and Kristi Winters during the UK general election campaign. Since its inception, the QESB has sought to ensure that each wave of the study replicates the data collection procedures of previous waves while updating the process to reflect concerns specific to the election campaign and include methodological innovations that improve data quality.

There is particular concern about the standards that replicated or replicable research need to adhere to and the extent to which context, reflexivity, and investigator bias are taken into account when evaluating replicable qualitative research inter alia, Herrnson, ; Lucas et al.

Some questions were replicated to connect the data to the QESB and the Scottish referendum datasets and to maintain the longitudinal series. The repeat inclusion of these questions allows a researcher the opportunity to conduct analyses on multiple levels: on how panel participants, participants with specific demographic or partisan characteristics, or in particular nations responded to the same questions over multiple waves.

To maintain the responsiveness of data collection to events unfolding during the campaign, question space was included on the focus group schedule equivalent to one long or two short questions , the wording for which was determined nearer the election.

Below are the pre- and post-election focus group question themes. Pre-election topics 1. Icebreaker question: Theme song for the leaders 2. Which leader would you want and not want to be stuck in a lift with? Which parties could you see yourself voting for?

What things do you consider when voting? Voter registration experiences 7. Story of your vote choice and experience of Election Day. Reactions to the election outcome.

Do the Conservatives have a mandate for their manifesto agenda? Are there any policies or politics that you will be paying attention in the weeks and months ahead? Would you say the election itself was fair and well run? Will the election outcome influence your vote in the devolved legislature elections?

In addition to the questions and themes, the research design and data collection processes for the QESB were also replicated from the previous waves of the study.

These are discussed in the next section. Methods The QESB conducted 14 pre-election and 9 post-election focus groups to investigate what Britons thought about the campaign and the election result. Focus groups were conducted in April and May One-hundred percent of the people who participated in the post-election focus groups were participants from the pre-election focus groups i.

Participants were recruited by re-inviting focus group participants from the study, the QESB, and the Scottish referendum focus groups. By doing this, the QESB has created a unique panel of participants whose political opinions can be tracked across multiple elections see Figure 2. Social media primarily Twitter , local media in Dundee radio and newspaper , and e-mail recruitment using university email lists were used to collect a pool of participants for sampling.

Figure 2. Participants across QESB waves. The wave also used the same sampling frame as in the study. Multiple sampling layers at macro, meso, and micro levels were included to reflect the needs of the research. These layers determined where and when focus groups were held and which individuals were chosen to participate in the groups.

Time pre- and post-election was a macro-level layer. Meso-level layers took into account the nations England, Scotland, and Wales , geography North vs. South , constituency-level dynamics safe seats, and 2-way and 3-way marginal seats , and constituency-level support Labour, Scottish National Party, Conservatives, Plaid Cymru, and Liberal Democrats. The meso-layer determined the locations for the focus groups.

Given the resource limitations, these locations were determined as Dundee and Glasgow in Scotland, Cardiff in Wales, and Birmingham, Colchester, and Clacton in England. The micro-level layer contained individual characteristics including demographics, economic background, and partisanship. Figure 9. Prepared focus group transcripts The transcript data included verbal and non-verbal responses to questions asked in the focus groups see section on Research Aim.

In the pre-election focus groups, participants were asked to introduce themselves, often by thinking about a response to an ice breaker question or by discussing their impressions of the campaign. Participants were also probed for the kinds of media they consumed, often by asking them to raise their hands if they read newspapers in print or online, followed the news on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media, or watched television.

Participants were probed further for reasons why they chose to focus on some media over other formats. The question on leader evaluations preceded a brainstorming session in which participants were asked to note down their first impressions of the main party leaders whose pictures were printed on a sheet of paper see Figure Subsequent to this written brainstorming, the focus group moderators led the participants in a discussion of their responses where participants got the opportunity of putting their initial responses into context and comparing them with the responses from other participants.

Figure Participants were asked to relate, in the form of a story, their experience of Election Day, how they voted and why, how they found out and what they felt about the results. When asked to relate a story of their day, participants often do so in a way that is both unique to how and why they voted but also has elements common with other participants.

These narratives may not be constructed in the same way by all participants. For example, not all participants will start by narrating when they got up on voting day and end with when they found out the results.

Some participants may start by expressing a dilemma on how they were to vote. Others may start by recounting an incident that stayed in their memory. Yet, all participants will have elements of their story that they may share with others. For example, all participants will explain how and why they voted. Some participants may share the strength of their voting convictions, other the confusion on how to vote, still others may have faced a turning point in resolving this confusion.

As previous analysis has shown Carvalho and Winters, , vote choice narratives can be used very well to examine the complexity of how individuals come to decide who to vote for and how they justify these reasons to themselves and to others. Participant and Question metadata: For this project it is not sufficient to collect, transcribe, anonymise and publish the QESB data. To encourage reuse, a metadata structure to qualitative research which can be applied across national contexts has been created.

This metadata structure will allow researchers to find transcript data based on study year, demographics, partisanship, constituency, pre- or post-election or research topic, among others; for instance, they could analyse post-election vote choice stories of men under 30 who were undecided pre-election but voted Conservative.

The structure has been piloted on the data set. The new metadata structure will be applied to the QESB and to focus group data to produce a harmonised, longitudinal qualitative electoral dataset published for public use.

In addition to the focus group discussion data, each transcript includes the metadata on the participants and the questions asked see Figures 11 and Each transcript contains a table with the following information for each participant: Alias name , Sex male or female , Special Category student, stay at home parent, unemployed or retired , Age group by cohorts , Supporter yes, supporter of a party or not , Party Strength 1 low party strength to 5 high party strength , Pre Group name of the pre-election focus group location , Post Group name of the pre-election focus group location , Constituency name of the constituency they vote in.

The inclusion of these hyperlinks should make it easier to narrow down specific answers in order to compare data or, alternatively, to follow the comments of a particular set of people based on a common characteristic location, age, sex, partisan identification, etc. A master list with each location, date, participants and questions asked will be made available and will be accompanied by a similar list of the metadata on questions and participants from the QESB, facilitating cross-election analysis.

Access information Copyright of the transcripts and documentation belongs to Dr. Edzia Carvalho and Dr. The data are available under safeguarded access and documentation is available to download for free.

References Bartle, J. Measuring party identification: An exploratory study with focus groups. Electoral Studies, 22 2 , Campbell, R. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, 18 1 , Carvalho, E. The grounded theory method: Popular perceptions of party leaders during the British General Election.

Parliamentary Affairs, 68 2 , Denver, D. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 7, Guba, E. Electors can opt out of the open register. European Union citizens excluding British, Irish, Cypriot and Maltese citizens who are included in previous categories are included in the "European and local gvernment electorate" but are not eligible to vote in Westminster Parliamentary elections. More quality and methodology information on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in the Electoral statistics QMI.

For England and Wales, electoral statistics are taken from data supplied to the Office for National Statistics by local electoral registration officers. The RPF29 form that underpins this publication does not collect data on electoral registrations by age, sex, citizenship or any other characteristics.

These boundaries came into effect at the May General Election. The typical size of constituencies differs between the constituent countries of the UK. It is possible in certain circumstances for someone to be lawfully registered to vote at more than one address.

This could include, for example, students who have different home and term-time addresses. In the year to December , there were delays in receiving forms from electoral registration officers for some of the local authority areas. Because of the priority given to running the general election called for 12 December , electoral registration officers published data during the period of November through to February later or earlier than the nominal 1 December date.

The difference in who is entitled to vote at Parliamentary and local elections depends largely on residence and citizenship conditions. Local government electors, for example, include those European Union citizens resident in the UK who are not entitled to vote in Westminster Parliamentary elections, whilst Parliamentary electors include British citizens resident overseas who are not entitled to vote in local government elections. The majority of those registered to vote in local government elections are also eligible to vote in European elections.

To be entitled to vote in European elections in the UK, European Union EU citizens are required to request the right to vote in this country rather than their home country. Those persons who do not make this request will not be included in the European Parliament electorate. The local government electorate in Scotland includes and year-olds who are ineligible to vote in European elections.

There are three main reasons why the registered numbers of electors in an area can change from year to year:. Electoral statistics represent the most accurate count possible of the number of people on electoral registers each year. They are subject to full quality assurance procedures, are reliable and provide comparable data across the UK constituent countries.

The electoral statistics we publish are used by Boundary Commissions, the Electoral Commission and central government to help with the improvement of electoral policies and for statutory reviews of Parliamentary constituency boundaries.

The statistics are also of interest to Members of Parliament and the general public. The electoral statistics in this bulletin give information on the number of people who are registered to vote in the UK - there is no similar collection of data on the number of people who are eligible to vote but who do not register. We provide mid-year estimates of the resident population and these have sometimes been used as an estimate of the total number of people who are entitled to vote.

However, care must be taken in using these data for that purpose as the population estimates include some people who are not eligible to vote and exclude some people who are eligible to vote for example, overseas electors. We have also published some research looking at the scope and quality of the electoral register as a likely source of data for measuring population, which is available in the Administrative Data Sources Report on the Electoral Register PDF, KB.

The Electoral Commission continues to conduct research on voter registration, as well as providing information and guidance to both electoral registration officers and the general public. In July , the Electoral Commission published a report into the accuracy and completeness of the December electoral registers. Further information to support the electoral statistics, covering methodology, quality and data sources is available from us:.

The Electoral Commission. The Electoral Commission conducts research on voter registration, as well as providing information and guidance to both electoral registration officers and the general public.

Reports and results relating to past elections are available on their website. Statistics for Parliamentary electors for electoral wards in England from to are available from the Boundary Commission for England. These statistics are produced from data collected from electoral registration officers by the Office for National Statistics ONS.

Those electors who are eligible to vote in local government elections in Wales are eligible to vote in Senedd Cymru for Wales elections. These statistics are produced from data collected from electoral registration officers by the ONS. The data are available from StatsWales please note their explanation giving details of the impact of boundary changes in some areas. The data are available from the electoral statistics section of the NRS website.

The data are available from the electoral statistics section of the EONI website. Tell us whether you accept cookies We would like to use cookies to collect information about how you use ons.

Accept all cookies. Set cookie preferences. Electoral statistics, UK: Electoral registrations for Parliamentary and local government elections as recorded in the electoral registers published on 1 December for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Table of contents Main points UK Parliamentary electoral registrations Local government electoral registrations Overseas electors Electors opted out of the open register Anonymous electors European Union citizens Comparison with electoral registrations at the time of the General Election Electoral statistics data Glossary Measuring the data Strengths and limitations Related links.

View all data used in this Statistical bulletin. Statistician's comment "The number of electoral registrations in December was the highest ever seen, surpassing the previous peak of December Figure 1: Parliamentary electoral registrations, UK, to Notes: Electoral registrations at the time of general elections from to can be found in historical editions of the Annual Abstract of Statistics.