Did young turn or did life just

IT’S been the case for a long time, but the fact that young people vote in fewer numbers than old ones has become a significant theme in this election.

The issue has come to the fore partly because it’s been offered as an alibi by the pollsters, still smarting after their failure to predict a Conservative overall majority in 2015.

It partly explains the big discrepancies between different polls, with some suggesting the Conservatives will win by a near-landslide and others predicting a much tighter result.

The central thesis is that while young people are much more likely to support Labour than the Conservatives, they are significantly less likely to vote than pensioners, among whom there is a commanding lead for the Tories.

In 2015, only 43% of people aged 18-24 voted, according to a survey carried out by Ipsos-MORI after that year’s general election. That compares to 78% of people over 65, and 66% overall. Those numbers broadly mirror the figures from the 2010 Ipsos-MORI survey as well.

Social scientists suggest that young people are less likely to participate in elections because as they have not yet formed the habit of voting, they are more likely to need strong reasons to make the effort to go to the polling station.

For many, voting is a hassle – both the process of registering and turning up to the polling booth itself. Voting cannot be done electronically, which is particularly relevant for young people who live much of their lives online.

It is also suggested that younger people typically have busy, more complicated lives and are more likely to find themselves in a situation where they are living in temporary accommodation and not registered to vote.

There is evidence to suggest that people are more likely to vote the longer they have been living in the same place. Many young people are part of the so-called “generation rent”, meaning that it is increasingly unlikely that they will settle down in one place until later in life. The “first-past-the-post” voting system may also be a barrier, with young people put off voting if they think their vote doesn’t matter.

While older people are more likely to vote for the same party in every election, young people more often want to vote for fringe parties. Such votes are more likely to affect outcomes in proportional representa-

> Dogs patiently waiting outside the nation’s polling stations while their owners cast their votes are, from left: Sunny and Jessie in Cardiff; Guia in Manchester; an unnamed dog in Dogmersfield,

> Graffiti in support of Jeremy Corbyn painted on a hoarding board in