Statistics On Young People Voting

• The green 'Electorate' section on the chart is the amount of people eligible to vote and the red 'Turnout' is the proportion of those people who did vote. 
• The highest recorded turnout for an election was in 1910.
• The country with the highest turnout is generally Wales and the country with the lowest turnout is usually Northern Ireland.

• Since 1964 you can see there was a decline in the turnout of people aged 18-24 voting in the General Election, however in 2010 there was a significant rise in young persons turnout compared to the previous election.

• The chart above shows the turnout of young people at General elections compared to all of the older eligible voters.
• It is clear that the young voters are the minority ad especially in 1997-2010 the amount of young voters compared to the rest of the voters is considerably less.
• I think this may be linked to the fact that as the world becomes more modern and teenagers have a lot more to engage in, the thought of voting and being interested in politics is almost unconsidered. Therefore, I think it is extremely necessary to create and get involved with campaigns to encourage young people to start voting otherwise the amount of young voters will inevitably continue to decrease. 

Aliyah Dar. (03/07/2013) Elections: Turnout [online]. Availible at: www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN01467.pdf.  [Accessed 02/01/2015]

Young Persons Voting Reports

In the last general election, only 44% of eligible young voters actually took their opportunity to vote, so no wonder young people are being highly encouraged to take the opportunity to vote if they have it. 

All young people should be required to vote in the first election they're eligible to vote in (IPPR cited by BBC. 2013)  The IPPR think tank may want to make it a policy that eligible voters should vote at their first legal election so that they're aware of what the process is so that they don't shy away from it or decide against voting at an older age. At least if they vote at their first legal election and feel that it wasn't right for them, they have a valid reason not to vote again rather than just being uneducated about the process. 

The Daily Mail Online (2014)say that 59% percent of teenagers won't vote in the 2015 election because they think politicians only care about celebrities, pensioners and successful business people. They also asked young people who would do the best job at running the country and the result of this question was Ed Milliband, the leader of the Labour party. If when asked unofficially who young people think should run the country an answer is given, then all of these young people with an opinion should vote in the election so that they're voice can be heard. If young people leave the voting to the rich and famous then they aren't taking their chance to make a change.

In the video above you can watch Tv's Rick Edwards Ted talk about how to encourage young people to vote. Previous to the talk he did research to discover what teenagers currently thought about politics and voting and from this research he discovered that most teenagers are just lacking in facts and information about parties and their policies. When Rick himself realised that he was little help to the young people when it came to informing them about where they could find out political information, he decided that he should make a change in order to increase the amount of young voters in the 2015 election.




To make a change, Rick has taken it upon himself, with some help, to create a VAA app for 2015's young voters to help them learn about parties and their policies as well as taking a survey to find out which party they should consider voting for based on which policies they agree with and support the most. (Rick Edwards 2014)

As a popular television personality with young people, this app could be a very successful break through to increase the amount of young voters as they will be able to easily access the information they may have previously spent ages scouring the web for, and the survey to give the young voters an idea about which party they should consider voting for is a very helpful extra boost.

Encouraging Young Voters

What I knew before?

I knew that to vote in the general election you have to be 18 years old or above and that you cannot turn up and vote if you haven't registered. I was also aware that there's a very small percentage of young people who actually vote because they don't care, don't know what each parties policies are or they feel as though, as a young person, their vote wouldn't be able to change the country. 

What was the task?
The college are starting a campaign to encourage young people to vote and know more about what it means to vote in an election. They will be using some of the posters that we designed as part of the campaign as using the NUS campaign to get young people to cote that have the slogans 'Your vote matters, make sure you're in' to teach young people the importance of registering to vote and 'These people want you to vote for them, this is what they're saying. 

I took a survey to find out which parties policies I appealed to the most, here are my results: 

The campaign is aiming to simplify the voting process and break it down so that young people aren't automatically put off and bored and so that they understand what their options are when it comes to making a vote. I found out some of labours policies that may interest young people, policies that they can relate to and understand easily:

• Guaranteed GP appointments within 48 hours, or the same day for the people who need it. 
• Making mental health treatment an NHS policy and to make sure that all NHS staff have mental health training. 
• Improvements to poor quality apprenticeships so that the final qualifications are more valuable.

The  http://www.labour.org.uk website is very helpful at informing about the Labour policies. They are written as simple points so they're quick to read and not over complicated. When looking at policies linked to a specific topic e.g. schools, the website gives you the option to look at policies on related topics e.g. young people. This is a really helpful feature for young people as they can get quick access to what they're interested in.

What I know now? 
I know know that you are able to register to vote from the age of 16, although you must still be 18 to got, the fact that you've registered shows the amount of young people who are interested in voting so that the parties know who their target audience are when it comes to creating future policies.
In the last general election only 44% of young people who were eligible to vote actually voted.