The spill-over and displacement effects of implementing election administration reforms: Introducing individual electoral registration in Britain

James, Toby S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5826-5461 (2014) The spill-over and displacement effects of implementing election administration reforms: Introducing individual electoral registration in Britain. Parliamentary Affairs, 67 (2). pp. 281-305. ISSN 1460-2482

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

The UK government intends to replace household electoral registration with individual electoral registration (IER). This article assesses the likely effects of the reform using an innovative methodology. A thematic analysis of extensive qualitative interviews with local election officials, conceived as ‘street-level bureaucrats’ responsible for implementing elections, was undertaken. Their local knowledge provides evidence that IER might improve the security of the registration process. However, it is likely to lead to a considerable decline in levels of electoral registration which might be highest amongst the young, elderly and minority populations; is a more resource-intensive method of compiling the electoral register; will pose new issues with data and technology for election officials; and, is likely to have a number of further ‘spill-over’ effects on other aspects of election administration, such as the cutting of other services. The article encourages further research using the local knowledge of street-level bureaucrats to examine the ‘back-office’ effects of election administration reforms since they may further our understanding of the complexities and unintended consequences of institutional reforms which might be overlooked in quantitative studies.

Item Type: Article
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Political, Social and International Studies (former - to 2014)
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Political, Social and International Studies
Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Policy & Politics
Depositing User: Katherine Humphries
Date Deposited: 17 Sep 2012 12:40
Last Modified: 13 May 2024 10:30
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/39561
DOI: 10.1093/pa/gss032

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item