Why voters are still staying home

1
Why voters are (still) staying home

• John Curtice
• Strathclyde University

2
GB Turnout 1970-1997
3
Two theories

• Changed Voters
• Disengaged - less interested/more cynical
• More individualistic less dutiful
• More demanding more cynical
• Media - too critical discourages involvement
• Changed party competition
• Less difference between parties
• Unprecedented one party dominance

4
If true..

• Changed Voters
• Less interest, duty and trust
• And these all linked to turnout
• Changed party competition
• Less perceived difference
• Less interested etc. stay at home
• British Social Attitudes British Election Study
  data

5
Trends in Political Interest
6
Trends in Citizen Duty
7
Trends in Trust
8
Turnout by Trust
9
Efficacy Recovers?
10
Decline of Party ID
11
Final Poll Leads
12
Tweedledum and Tweedledee?
13
The (already) uninterested stay at home
14
Conclusion

• The incentive to vote was as weak in 2005 as in
  2001
• As a result the already less interested stayed at
  home - just as in 2001
• Though incentives matter more in an era of weak
  party id
• But now that British politics is more competitive
  (some of) the decline in turnout can be reversed?