New figures from the Electoral Commission paint a depressingly familiar picture of why BME people are less likely to vote, writes Lester Holloway

‘Why don’t black people vote’ is the title of an interesting video by community film-maker Rashid Nix. It explores a number of issues around the quality of political representation and whether parties care about issues that concern BME communities.

Some of these issues are also reflected in a new survey by the Electoral Commission looking at the 2015 general election. One question (table 48) asked those who had not registered to vote to give reasons why. Just two percent of White people answered “Don’t like politics / politicians, or nobody represents my view”, compared to 26 percent of BME respondents. This perception that politicians do not serve BME communities was the overwhelming difference between White and BME people who had failed to register.

That BME’s should be 13 times more likely to feel that politics does not represent them or reflect their concerns should give all political parties food for thought.

Why are you not registered to vote? Table 48

When you factor in ethnic disparity on the question of “Don’t see the point in registering”, it is clear that disillusionment with politics, more than any other reason, is the key factor behind the democratic deficit.

A key part of that will be the failure of politics to get to grips with disproportionate disadvantage, such as Black unemployment that has been running at double the rate of White unemployment almost since records began.

This disengagement with politics is also reflected in the gap between being registered to vote and actually casting that vote. 97 percent of White people are on the register compared to 87 percent who voted, a gap of -10 percent, while 87 percent of BME people are registered compared to 73 percent who voted, a wider gap of -14 percent (table 53).

There is a problem with these figures, in that the actual turnout at the 2015 election was 66.1 percent, so the survey is catching a disproportionate cohort of people who claimed they had voted than the national result. Nevertheless, the sample size of the survey, carried out by Ipsos MORI, indicates that even if they found more politically engaged people there are still important lessons to learn.

The Electoral Commission survey also highlights issues around a deficit of information around voting. 21 percent of BME people who failed to register gave lack of information about parties policies, compared to four percent of unregistered White people. 

Five percent of BME’s did not know whether they were on the register or not, compared to just one percent of White people, and BME people were twice as likely to claim they did not receive a registration form.

Of those registered to vote but who did not actually vote, the survey (table 64) shows that BME voters were more likely to have failed to vote because of “lack of time / busy at work” (27:19%), and were more than twice as likely not to have attempted to vote because they claim not to have received a polling card (5:2%). However, BME voters were also twice as likely to say they would have voted if they could vote online (table 74, 60:33%) or if voting was held over the weekend (table 89, 42:25%). Being able to register right up to polling day would also help.

So, if the results of this poll are anything to go by, the key to tackling the ethnic disparity in voting is for politics itself to become more relevant to BME communities (such as policies to address unequal racial outcomes), and for reforms to the voting process itself as well as better or more targeted information.

This is all hardly rocket science and is essentially factors that we already know about. What we haven’t seen is enough action by political parties, and the Electoral Commission, to address the problem; despite campaign group Operation Black Vote raising these issues for the past 15 years.

As Rashid Nix’s film makes clear, BME citizens know what the problems are, and the powers that be also know what to do. All that is missing is the political will to make changes to bring about legitimacy to our electoral democracy.

@brolezholloway