With the Local Council’s taking place of the 5th of May, we as a group decided to gauge the level of involvement, given that the local elections were taking place in the middle of a very unstable national political atmosphere.
We had conducted vox pops, and distributed questionnaires online, to try to understand why people vote in council elections.
The results of the survey were intriguing to say the least, as the data we gathered showed that though a large population were aware about the local council elections, they had only a vague idea as to the political capacity in which council’s operate.
A sizeable 70% of the people whom we questioned did not vote in the local election for the post of councillor and police commissioner. Amongst the reasons people didn’t give for voting, was the lack of information regarding polling stations, registering from their home address, not realising that local elections would be before the referendum.
“I don't feel they have as much impact on my life as other elections. I have no idea who my local councillors/ police crime commissioners are or what they actually do. I would rather leave it to other voters who have an interest in this and an understanding of it to vote.” said one of the people who answered the survey
What was most intriguing however, was to discover that 89% of the people we asked planned to register themselves, and exercise their vote in the EU Referendum on June 23rd.
A large section of the people who answered this question said that they felt that the result would be of profound consequence to their future as well as those of their families, and as a result they would like to influence them as much as they can.
The amount of media coverage may have proven to be the difference between both votes, as a large portion of the youth feel more informed to make a decision concerning the European Union than they do with their own council.
In a way, it shows where student priorities lie, in relation to politics in general. Political involvement seems to largely be selective with a lot of students just generally not caring too much about their local wards.
