Author: Nicky Milsted

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Automatic Voter Registration and Private Renters

People who rent their homes privately are consistently underrepresented on the electoral register. The difficulty of registering to vote is particularly stark for those who move home frequently, who must re-register each time they have a new address.

 

Electoral Commission data shows that those who have lived in their home for less than a year are registered at only 39%, compared to 95% for those who have lived in their home 16 years or more. House moving is a challenge for private renters, with the English Housing Survey finding that 37% move home more than once within the typical 5-year General Election cycle.

 

Low registration seems to be a particular issue for renters living in Houses in Multiple Occupancy (HMOs). By contrast, people who own two homes are entitled to be registered at both.

 

New research from Generation RentCover of report: Automatic Voter Registration and Private Renters, supported by the UK Democracy Fund, finds that there were 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, meaning that an automated voter registration system could be highly effective for renters.

 

Generation Rent also propose further measures which could support the registration of remaining renters – for example through GP surgeries or banks.

 

Crucially, this research finds that an automated registration system would be effective for registering large numbers of renter voters, for whom the current system does not work.

 

Download the full report from Generation Rent here

 

Image: Ivan Samkov, Pexels

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How the Government can transform voter registration to increase democratic equality

Ellen Berry, Head of the UK Democracy Fund, celebrates the success of the Fund’s grantees in encouraging voter registration amongst those least likely to be engaged in voting ahead of last year’s General Election.

She also explains how the Fund is leading calls to improve voter registration to build a voting system fit for the 21st century…

 

Through the incredible efforts of our grantee community, the UK Democracy Fund estimates that together we registered nearly three quarters of a million voters ahead of the 2024 General Election.

 

Fund grantees piloted models of community engagement for Black voters; worked through schools, colleges and Universities; engaged young people online through youth-led campaigns; organised in migrant communities; worked through churches, mosques, employers and trusted brands.

 

Despite these and other efforts, at the 2024 General Election, long-term trends in voter disengagement culminated in record low turnout, with the second lowest UK general election turnout since universal suffrage was introduced.

 

Research shows that this lack of participation was not evenly shared across the population. Constituencies with a higher proportion of younger people, renters, people from racialised and minoritised ethnicities, or Muslim voters, had lower turnout. The result is democratic inequality.

 

In a response to The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee’s inquiry into the 2024 election, the UK Democracy Fund demonstrated why without a change to our registration process, this inequality is likely to increase. We showed that the work of our grantees is effective, but too resource intensive to close the up-to-8-million-person voter registration gap.

 

The good news is that the Government has committed in their manifesto to improve voter registration, and recently committed to publish their approach to electoral registration before summer recess.

 

Professors Toby James and Paul Bernal have laid out in their March 2025 report for the UK Democracy Fund how the Government can deliver on their commitment. Automatic or direct voter registration is an effective solution to address democratic inequality, improve the accuracy and completeness of the register, respect voters’ privacy and could save money. Automatic voter registration will also be essential for the success of the Government’s welcome plan to extend the franchise to 1.5 million young voters aged 16 and 17.

 

Legislation on elections is expected in the next Parliamentary session, and the Government has an opportunity to build a voting system fit for the 21st century which ensures that all potential voters voices are heard.

 

Words: Ellen Berry, UK Democracy Fund

Image: Edmond Dantes, Pexels

 

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Our Grantee and Applicant Survey

In late 2024, we invited grantees and applicants of JRRT, the UK Democracy Fund and JRSST-CT to share their views – anonymously – about our application processes, grant making and strategic priorities via our survey.

 

Chief Executive Fiona Weir introduces some of the findings of the survey in her blog below and describes our next steps in responding to the valuable insights shared.

 

You can also download the full survey report here 

 

It’s hard to exaggerate how much we value the feedback and rich insights from the 110 of you who responded to our 2024 survey (59% is a good response rate!).

 

You told us about your organisations, what you think of us, our grant application processes, the Democracy Network, and what you think our strategic priorities should be going forward. The responses are fascinating so please do read further.

 

36% (46% JRRT) of respondents were non-charitable campaign groups; 32% (23% JRRT) charities. 10% said “yes” to their primary focus being racial justice; and 18.5% said that their organisation is Black or minority-ethnic led (as defined by the Funders for Race Equality Alliance).

 

We held our breath a bit to see what negative feedback might come through in an anonymous survey… but were delighted at how overwhelmingly positive the feedback was. Thank you! The Board and the staff team really appreciated this.

 

It’s important not just to publish the responses but to also tell you how we are using them to inform our work.

 

At the Democracy Network Summit in Sheffield in February, I highlighted the data on size of organisations by turnover – 32% of respondents have low income, less than £100k pa.   53% of respondents put “growing and diversifying income” top of the list for capacity building needs.  “Working to bring other funders towards the democracy space” was your clear first choice for JRRT direct activity priorities. In the open responses, a number of grantees raised the need for multiyear funding. We are looking hard at what we can do as part of live strategy discussions.

 

Over half of grantees (55%) understand JRRT strategy well, UK Democracy Fund 70% and JRSST-CT 46%. We’d like this to be much higher, so we are thinking through how we communicate the new strategy in June and how we reinforce that regularly.

 

The application process was rated positive for speed (85%) and ease (75%). 29% of applicants reported feeling pressure to modify priorities – partly offset by 87% of grantees feeling comfortable approaching us if there is a problem.  Alongside scope for improving feedback and discussions about reports, there is food for thought which the team is working through so we can improve our processes.

 

Finally, we have shared the responses on the Democracy Network with their staff to supplement work they are doing on the state of the sector and future role of the Network. Only 39% of respondents are members so do click here to find out more about the Democracy Network!

 

Both the JRRT and JRSST-CT Boards received the full survey responses ahead of strategy development sessions in York in late March. We have also reflected on research, policy, polling and citizen engagement by the sector in recent years and what we have heard from you at conferences, retreats and learning events over the last year.

 

This includes your input to the survey question: Can you tell us what you think our priorities should be, and why? Across the three entities there was solid support for many of the issues we have been prioritising to date. JRRT’s focus on “Open and accountable government”, JRSST-CT’s focus on “Informed and engaged citizens”, and UK Democracy Fund’s focus on “Voter participation and system reform” were each rated highly, as were two issues not included in the 2020 survey: “Trust in politics” and “Countering support for populist and extremist policies” – both of these reflecting long-term threats to democracy in the UK and the challenge of building democratic resilience.

 

We plan to finalise and communicate our new strategy and funding priorities before the end of June and look forward to talking to many of you about how we take this forward.

 

Fiona Weir

Chief Executive JRRT & JRSST-CT

 

Downloads

Report of the survey findings 

And you can also download the full text of all the open responses given to the survey for each entity using these links:

 

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Nominate now! SMK Awards 2025

The SMK National Campaigner Awards are back for 2025!

Each year, SMK celebrates the best campaigns and campaigners. Their interest is in finding those who have made change happen – most effectively, creatively and courageously.

That change might be in law or policy; it might be in attitudes, social norms or behaviour; it could be in how services are provided, or in the protection of a service or asset.

What all entries will have in common is the determination to secure a specific change that will make things better – whether for an individual, a local neighbourhood or for every single one of us.

And nominations are now open! 

 

David & Goliath Award

JRRT is proud to sponsor the David & Goliath category of the SMK Awards. This Award is all about the little guys. It celebrates individuals or small campaign groups that take on much bigger organisations and challenge vested power.

Our sponsorship is made in memory of our friend and former Director, Lord David Shutt.

 

Previous winners of the David & Goliath Award have included:

2024

The Justice For Omisha Campaign; one family and their community taking on the Home Office’s hostile environment immigration system and fighting for an NHS that is free to provide universal healthcare for all.

 

 

2023

Power for People‘s Community Energy Revolution campaign which co-ordinated grassroots advocacy across the UK for the Local Electricity Bill.

The Bill, if enacted, would empower community energy schemes to sell their clean energy back to their community. Their campaign gathered cross-party support from more than 300 MPs.

 

2022

A group of CYA and some of their supporters travelling to Facebook HQ in London. Photo credit: Slawomir Furgalski

The #FacebookHasNoStandards campaign from Coventry Youth Activists which sought to change the way disability hate and ableism is handled by social media platforms.

 

 

Nominate your top campaign for the David & Goliath Award now!

 

Nominations close on Friday 28 February 2025 at 5pm. 

 

Check out details of all of the SMK Award categories on the SMK website