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James, Toby 
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
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 University of East Anglia > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Political, Social and International Studies |
| Depositing User: | Katherine Humphries |
| Date Deposited: | 17 Sep 2012 12:40 |
| Last Modified: | 23 Oct 2022 00:19 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/39561 |
| DOI: | 10.1093/pa/gss032 |
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