Voter Turnout in British South Asian Communities at the 2001 General Election

Abstract

The turnout of 59.4 per cent at the 2001 general election was the lowest since 1918. It has been widely assumed that ethnic or religious minority electors are less likely to vote in general elections than white electors. Furthermore, electoral participation is regarded as both an indicator of the integration of minority communities and the quality of the democratic system. However, existing research that attempts to provide ethnic or religious specific estimates relies heavily on survey data or aggregate data. Most surveys do not overcome the problems of misreporting, non-response bias and a small sample size. Ecological estimates for minority groups are based on potentially spurious inferences from aggregate to individual data. In short, evidence of lower turnout among ethnic and religious minority electors remains inconclusive. Here we use an alternative method to gauge the level of participation among South Asian electors at the 2001 general election. This article uses evidence from complete sets of marked electoral registers from a random sample of 97 wards at the 2001 general election, analysed using names recognition software. This allows a unique analysis of electoral turnout among Britain's South Asian communities. Using religious origin to aid comparisons with other data sources, the results show turnout is as high or higher for South Asian electors than the rest of the population, but this varies by religious groups. For Hindus, turnout was significantly higher than the overall rate. Also using a multi-level logistic regression model, we find that South Asian turnout is statistically significantly higher in areas where there are more South Asians in the electorate, which is where overall turnout rates are much lower.