English Local Elections Research Articles

The Electoral Consequences of Tax Increases: Are Parties Punished for Raising Taxes?

Do governments presiding over tax increases lose votes? One assumption is tax increases affect incumbent parties equally but we also expect asymmetric responses with differing penalties for left- and right-wing parties. Influential literature also assumes voters incapable of assigning responsibility to policymakers or holding them accountable. We find that tax increases are more costly to a left-of-centre party. Previous research assessing this is hampered by a lack of comparable cases; however, our tests are conducted with results from thousands of English local elections across decades. We find tax increases by labour-controlled councils corresponded with a significant vote swing against labour. There were no effects of rate increases on votes for conservative-controlled or Lib Dem-controlled councils. These results have implications for how democratic elections may produce responsive governments, and we discuss why there may be an asymmetry, where there is more electoral responsiveness to tax increases by governments of the left.

The Effect of Election Proximity on Government Responsiveness and Citizens’ Participation: Evidence From English Local Elections

Does political engagement depend on government responsiveness? Identifying the drivers of political action is challenging because it requires disentangling instrumental from expressive motives for engagement and because government responsiveness is likely endogenous. We overcome the first challenge by studying citizens’ reporting of street-problems—a form of participation arguably driven by instrumental considerations. We overcome the second challenge by taking advantage of variation in local elections timing in England’s district authorities. We report three key results. First, local governments address requests faster in the months leading to elections. Second, street-problem reporting increases in (pre)electoral periods. Third, the increase in requests sent in preelection periods is driven by districts in which government responsiveness is higher. These findings show that, individuals consider expected benefits when choosing to undertake at least some instrumental forms of participation. Our results also underscore the importance of temporal factors that increase the perceived benefits of one’s political engagement.

Electoral integrity, voter fraud and voter ID in polling stations: lessons from English local elections

ABSTRACTPolling stations are at the fulcrum of the democratic process. They are the location where most voters exercise their democratic rights, but also one place where electoral fraud and irregularities may occur, both in consolidating and established democracies. This study provides a detailed analysis of the nature and frequency of electoral irregularities that are found in English local elections using original surveys of poll workers in 2018 and 2019 (n = 5659). It also identifies the effects of recent attempts to improve electoral integrity through the introduction of voter identification requirements on a pilot basis. Elections are found to be broadly well run but problems are reported with names missing from the electoral register and polling station accessibility requirements. Some more infrequent problems were reported with inappropriate behaviour from party agents/candidate – and some gender-based intimidation amongst voters. Attempted impersonation was exceptionally rare, however, and measures to introduce voter identification requirements therefore had little effect on the security of the electoral process. In fact, they led to some voters not casting their ballot, either for reasons of convenience and availability of suitable forms of ID, or reasons of principle and protest. There are therefore important implications for the wider literature on electoral integrity and the design of democratic practices.

Mobilising the ‘People’s Army’ at the Grassroots: Examining Support for the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in English Local Elections

Between 2013 and the referendum on Britain’s EU membership in 2016, the UK Independence Party (UKIP) emerged as the most significant new party in English politics for a generation. Yet, despite rising to become the third most popular party, temporarily replacing the Liberal Democrats in the polls, UKIP failed to translate support into a large presence in Westminster. At the 2015 general election, the party won only one seat and in the aftermath of the 2016 referendum suffered a major loss of support. In this article, we investigate UKIP’s rise and show why the party’s evolution at local level is an important but neglected factor in its failure to engineer a substantial breakthrough. By analysing aggregate-level data on local elections and surveys of UKIP’s largely inexperienced but enthusiastic candidates, we show how the party’s initial advance came largely at the expense of the Conservative Party but then opened a second front against Labour, in more urban areas. Unlike the Liberal Democrats, UKIP was unable to sustain this momentum and failed to use a local government base as a foundation for strong representation in parliament.

Never to be forgotten? The 2013 English local elections

Never to be forgotten? The 2013 English local elections

Never to be forgotten? The 2013 English local elections

Regular columnist John Curtice looks back on a momentous local elections season for Ukip and its implications both for the three main parties at Westminster and the future of British politics.

‘You can't play politics with people's jobs and people's services’: Localism and the politics of local government finance

Despite growing cross-party support for the principles of localism, the coalition's radical devolution agenda looks set to provoke a level of tension in central–local relations not seen since the 1980s. This article argues that the central cause of this friction, the front-loading of cuts in the local government financial settlement for 2011–2013, must be understood as the centrepiece of theConservatives’ agenda for local government reform. It is argued that, as with the introduction of the poll tax after 1987, the Conservatives have adopted a high-risk political strategy that will require the government to persuade voters that cuts in services arise from the failings of local councils. Evidence from opinion polls in the first half of 2011 suggests that the public is yet to be convinced that the blame lies with local government, but that they remain open to persuasion. However, a regionalized analysis of projected public sector job loss and voting patterns at the 2011 English local elections suggests that voters look set to blame central government in the areas where the cuts will hit hardest. If future local elections repeat this pattern, the limitations of the political strategy behind the localism agenda will become highly apparent.

Order effects of ballot position without information-induced confirmatory bias

Candidate list positions have been shown to influence decision making when voters have limited candidate information. Here, a primacy advantage is observed owing to a greater number of positive arguments generated for early list candidates. The present study examined list position effects when an absence of information precludes such a confirmatory bias heuristic. We report the first large-scale low-information experimental election where candidate position is fully counterbalanced. Seven hundred and twenty participants voted in a mock election where the position of six fictitious and meaningless parties was counterbalanced across the electorate. Analysis by position revealed that significantly fewer votes were allocated to the terminal parties, and found preliminary evidence of an alphabetical bias. This positional bias was not present in a methodological replication using six genuine UK political parties. This suggests that in situations of pure guessing, the heuristic shifts from the primacy benefiting confirmatory bias to an alternative heuristic that prejudices the first and last parties. These findings suggest that while the UK general electoral process may be largely immune to positional prejudice, English local elections (in which there can be multiple candidates from the same party) and multiple preference ranking systems (Scottish Local Government and London Mayoral Elections) could be susceptible to both positional and alphabetical biases.

Is Voting Habit Forming? The Longitudinal Impact of a GOTV Campaign in the UK

This paper examines whether voters mobilized by a Get Out The Vote (GOTV) campaign continue to turn out in a subsequent election. It thereby tests the extent to which they gain the habit of voting. The research examined electoral registers in the 2006 English local elections in the constituency of Wythenshawe and Sale East. This was the site of John and Brannan’s (2007) GOTV experiment, which had compared the impact of telephoning and door‐to‐door canvassing in the 2005 General Election. Descriptive statistics show that the downstream effect of the treatment was quite small at 3% in 2006. But the habit effect was large. Voting in 2005 raised the probability of voting in 2006 by more than half. Regression analysis confirms the size of the habit effect. The paper discusses the limitations of sample size in making statistical inferences about the prevalence of the habit effect in one location.

The Canary in a Coalmine? Explaining the Emergence of the British National Party in English Local Politics

The election of more than 60 British National Party (BNP) councillors across England from 2002-2007 does not sit easily with the conventional analysis of far-right parties in the UK, which has tended to dismiss the extreme right as an insignificant political force. Building on a recent Democratic Audit report on the BNP by Peter John et al. (The BNP - The Roots of its Appeal, University of Essex: Democratic Audit, 2006), this paper examines the dynamics of local party competition in the localities where the BNP has achieved greatest local representation. Through this analysis, the paper challenges the dominant view of the BNP, arguing that the BNP's breakthrough in English local elections must be understood as a warning signal about the state of local democracy in England and, in particular, an indicator of the advanced decay of local political parties.

Patterns of voting choice in multimember districts: the case of english local elections

Analysis of plurality voting where district magnitude is greater than one offers students of electoral behaviour unique opportunities. In this paper we use aggregate voting data from English local elections to explore a number of issues concerning the relationship between parties, candidates and voters. Our first task is to measure the level of unused votes and consider the impact of party competition and electoral marginality. Multimember districts also provide the potential for intra-party comparisons of candidates. Accordingly, we measure the range of votes between candidates from the same party and consider the impact of incumbency, gender and ballot position on differential rates of electoral support. Although the empirical focus of the paper is on English local government, its findings may well prove relevant to an understanding of the relationship between voters and parties in other electoral systems where a choice about the number of votes to use and the way in which to cast them is available.

Exploring uniformity and variability in local electoral outcomes: Some evidence from English local elections 1985–1991

A detailed analysis of English local elections between 1985 and 1991 seems to support the propositions that a proportion of electors hold contradictory local and national voting preferences at one and the same time; and that there is significant variation in party performance both between and within local authorities. The paper concludes that the stimuli to which electors respond in local elections are often those most relevant to the ‘context’ in which their vote is cast. If partisan dealignment has led to a greater willingness on the part of the electorate to regard voting as a matter of ‘horses for courses’, there may not only be a further fragmentation in the results of elections of all kinds but the parties may experience different degrees of success depending on the nature of the contest.

Turnout in English local elections—An aggregate analysis with electoral and contextual data

Analysis of survey data by Miller has identified a number of factors influencing voter participation in local government elections in Britain. Nevertheless, variations in turnout remain so great that further investigation is required. This article uses aggregate data derived from the results of county council elections since 1981 and those for the metropolitan districts since 1982. Additional data, of a social, economic and structural nature, are also used to explore variations in electoral turnout. Using multiple regression analysis produces only a modest success in predicting turnout for the more rural county authorities. In the urban metropolitan districts, however, a much higher level of turnout could be predicted from the model.

Lessons of the 1982 English local elections

The 1982 local elections in Britain were the first elections fought on a nationwide basis by the Liberal/Social Democratic Party Alliance. Although there are methodological problems, the results in provincial England can be analysed to provide clues to the character of support for Britain's newest political formation. Although the Alliance achieved a substantially higher vote than the Liberals had in 1980, it proved difficult to achieve a breakthrough in terms of wards won—especially for the SDP who tended to contest poorer prospects than their Liberal partners. There is only weak evidence that the SDP could mobilize new sources of support. The even spread of the Alliance's vote was such as to cast doubt on their ability to win seats at the next general election unless a very high level of support is attained.

The Voting Decision: Instrumental and Expressive Aspects

O F ALL POSSIBLE POLITICAL ACTIONS the voting decision has received the most attention from behavioral political scientists. Probably we have compiled and analyzed more data on candidate choice and turnout than on any other form of political behavior. Of course, this heavy emphasis comes as no surprise. The voting act is the fundamental political act in a democracy. It is the most widespread political act. Furthermore, on the surface, at least, the voting act would appear to be one of the simplest (and therefore, most understandable) political acts. A heavy scholarly focus on the voting act follows naturally from these considerations. While our data base expands, however, our theoretical superstructure remains far from finished. It is fair to say that political science has relied chiefly on models rooted in the sociological, and later the social-psychological tradition.' These models hold that