Young people may skew to the left, but older people turn out in greater numbers

Claim

A recent leap in the number of people registering to vote has been viewed as positive for Labour because the younger voters said to predominantly be signing up skew to the left.

Background

The voter registration deadline of Tuesday 26 November will dictate who can and cannot take part in the 2019 general election.

According to the Electoral Reform Society, there have been 3.2 million applications to register since the day the election was called, an average of 114,000 per day.

That is up by 38% from the 2.3 million in a similar period before the 2017 election.

An estimated 45.8 million people were already registered to vote as of December 2018, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.

Reality

About two-thirds of new applications are from those aged 34 and under. Younger people have been shown in recent polls to be more likely to vote Labour, Liberal Democrat or Green.

The polling organisation YouGov said after the 2017 vote that Labour was 47 percentage points ahead among first-time voters (aged 18 and 19), but among those over 70 the Conservatives were 50 percentage points ahead.

Q&A What is ‘tactical voting’? Show Hide Under the first-past-the-post voting system, tactical voting is when you vote for a party that you would not normally support in order to stop another party from winning. For example, in a constituency where the result is usually tight between a party you dislike and a party you somewhat dislike, and the party you support usually comes a distant third and has no chance of winning, you might choose to lend your vote to the party you somewhat dislike. This avoids ‘“wasting” your vote on a party that cannot win the seat, and boosting the chances that the party you dislike most will lose.

So does a surge in registrations favour Labour? Not all young people vote. In 2017, turnout among 18- and 19-year-olds was 57%, compared with 84% for the over-70s.

Some people registering may already be signed up but applied again to check, leading to duplication. The latest official studies show as many as 8.5 million people are incorrectly registered. In 2017, the Electoral Commission found that 37% of “new” registrations were duplicates.

Millions more could still potentially sign up but may not. The Electoral Commission estimates there are as many as 9.4 million people missing from the electoral roll.

There are fears dissatisfaction with politicians and the timing of the election in winter could dent turnout, which analysts believe could be bad for Labour. However, the veteran psephologist John Curtice at Strathclyde University has said the two postwar period elections in winter both had high turnouts.

Verdict

Polling data suggests more young voters heading to the ballot box would favour Labour. However, some new registrations are likely to be duplicates, while older people turn out in greater numbers. The surge may not help Labour as much as the party hopes.