Private renters are one of the least enfranchised groups in British society, with low levels of voter registration arising from frequent moves. The Electoral Commission estimates that just 66% of private renters in England and 73% in Wales are accurately registered on the electoral roll.
Last year, Generation Rent ran a campaign funded by the UK Democracy Fund to register private renters to vote in the General Election. Despite the short notice of the snap election, we estimate we registered 26,000 private renters to vote by the deadline. You can read an account of what we did and what we learned in our report.
One lesson we took from the campaign was that it is too easy for renters to fall off the electoral roll and this is too damaging to democracy to rely on organisations like ours to address through digital advertising campaigns. We need an overhaul of the voter registration system.
The introduction of Automatic Voter Registration (AVR), supplemented by assisted voter registration would make a huge difference to registration levels for private renters and make it easier for most of us to stay on the electoral roll when we move home.
AVR would see citizens’ voting address updated whenever they changed their address with the local council or another state body, meaning renters would have one fewer thing to worry about when moving home.
In a follow-up report commissioned by the UK Democracy Fund, we find that of 9.41m private renters over the age of 16 in England and Wales at the 2021 Census, 8.53m (91%) were in a household likely to interact with the council for council tax, HMRC for self-assessment tax returns, DVLA for driving licences or the DWP for Universal Credit, State Pension or other means-tested benefits.
A survey of our supporters indicates most people interacting with these state institutions will update their address when they move. A system of AVR would share this data with Electoral Registration Officers and allow the register to be updated with no further action from the citizen.
We also held a focus group of renters, who indicated broad support for AVR as reducing the confusion and stress many renters can experience when they move home.
AVR has the potential to empower millions more renters at election time, particularly renters who receive benefits, who, our polling finds, are less likely to be on the electoral roll.
However, there is a minority of renters who don’t have interaction with the state when moving home so need greater attention. As well as the introduction of AVR, this report proposes assisted voter registration measures for:
- Educational institutions, to reach the 453,000 full-time students who won’t otherwise interact with the state;
- Banks and GPs, with whom citizens are most likely to update their address when they move;
- Councils, to prompt other members of a recently updated household to update their registration.
For the 423,000 private renters who have no interaction with the council or other state body, whether directly or through a household member, councils will need to make use of the new private rented property database, which will help to identify homes where there are likely to be new arrivals. Once much of the registration process is automated, officers will have more capacity to target resources at these properties.
Our report highlights the points of engagement these renters do have with institutions which could support an automated and assisted registration system, such as banks, GP surgeries and energy providers.
We propose this and other recommendations to better enable some of the most marginalised renters to register and vote.
Read our full report for more.
Media coverage in The Guardian
