Return to the old ways may bring voters back
WHEN we go to vote on May 4 in the local elections, we’ll need to take photo ID with us to vote.
According to the Government, this is to prevent voter fraud.
Frankly, if ministers had sat down to come up with a plan to make it more likely that even fewer people would vote this year than in previous years, they couldn’t have come up with a better plan.
Cases of voter fraud are few and far between and, of course, the sanctity of the electoral system needs to be protected - but at the cost of fewer people voting?
Here in Rossendale, there are council wards where fewer than a third of people turn out to vote in local elections anyway.
The challenge facing politicians is to get more to want to vote in local elections, not to put more hurdles in the way of people voting.
This places an extra emphasis on our local politicians to get people to vote.
For the last decade, Rossendale Council has been run by Labour, but by relatively small majorities, and, for periods, reliant on the support of independent councillors.
Given the state of the national polls - and the desire of political leaders in Westminster to treat local elections as practice runs for the general election - it could be tempting for
Labour to believe this year’s elections could be an easier run for them.
After all, the last time the current crop of seats up for election were contested was in 2019, Jeremy Corbyn was very unpopular and still Labour locally held on to power in Rossendale.
But the fragile nature of Labour’s lead in
Rossendale means that would be a dangerous strategy, as it only takes one or two seats to change hands - specifically to the Tories - for a complete change of leadership at the council to become a reality.
Equally, for the Tories, the challenge is to cut through the national noise and focus on local issues.
For both, the challenge is to get people to the polls.
Given low turnout at local elections, it doesn’t take too many people to turn out for the first time to make a real difference to the results - especially if some people can’t vote because they don’t know to bring photo ID, and don’t have the time to return to vote for a second time.
The challenge for local parties then, surely, is to make this year the year that we see a return to the old days and multiple leaflets, knocking on doors and every attempt taken to engage with every single voter in Rossendale.
Recent years have seen parties focus on specific wards, or sending very general election leaflets to everyone in Rossendale.
What matters in Edenfield is very different to what matters in Whitworth, however.
But political parties can only work with the resources they have and, to a large extent, they are volunteer organisations locally. They can only be effective it we, as voters, are receptive.
So lets make it our aim to dig out the photo ID and clear time on May 4 to cast our votes in the local elections.