Electoral Register: Students

(asked on 22nd July 2019) - View Source

Question

To ask the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, with reference to the Answer of 23 April 2012, Official Report, column 623W on Electoral Register, what steps he has taken to improve student registration.


Answered by
Bridget Phillipson Portrait
Bridget Phillipson
Shadow Secretary of State for Education
This question was answered on 5th August 2019

We know from our research of the electoral registers that students and young people are less likely to be registered to vote.

As part of its public awareness campaigns ahead of elections, the Commission seeks to target under-registered groups wherever this is possible. This includes placing advertising on platforms like Snapchat and Instagram, and buying TV advertising space during times when people aged 16 to 34 make up a larger proportion of the audience.

The Commission also provides voter registration resources to a wide range of groups or individuals, to use in encouraging registration. These are freely available via the Commission’s website or its ‘Roll Call’ newsletter, to which anyone can subscribe. Ahead of the elections in May 2019, it developed a number of resources in partnership with the National Union of Students, including social media images, posters and a resource pack for individual student unions.

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