London’s elections – what should change for 2024?

Efficiently organised elections that engage high numbers of Londoners and deliver clear results are vital for the success of democracy in London.

Given all the challenges, of the coronavirus pandemic and a year’s delay, the delivery of the 2021 London elections was largely successful, according to a report from the London Assembly today. The turnout of 42 per cent was encouragingly high: the third largest of the six elections so far, and approximately 7.8 million ballot papers were counted.

The cost of delivering the elections was more than double that for the same elections in 2016, rising from £16 million to £38 million. This was largely due to ‘sunk’ costs already committed to for the 2020 elections which had to be repeated in 2021, and additional costs for ensuring the election was safe in terms of COVID 19, including the extension of the count to two days.

The London Assembly Election Review Working Group has investigated all aspects of the 2021 elections with evidence from candidate teams and administrators and has today produced its report ^[1] into the polls. Recommendations include:

• More measures are needed to support blind and partially sighted voters, and London Elects should reach out to the RNIB for advice.
• With a record number of rejected votes and a late redesign of ballot papers to include a large number of candidates, more should be done in future to test ballot paper designs in advance, and communication of how to vote should be more widely promoted.
• By the next election, more consistency in the voting rights of citizens of the different EU Member States is needed, so the Government should pursue further reciprocal voting agreements as quickly as possible and include other nations outside the EU in this work, which could extend voting rights to more Londoners.
• Given the wide range of risks to the delivery of any general election on the same day as GLA elections, if the government chooses to hold a general election on a date that clashes with the GLA election period, then it should move the GLA elections to a suitable alternative date.

Siân Berry AM, Chair of the Election Review Working Group said;

“Making sure every eligible Londoner is able to have their say in choosing their representatives in City Hall is a vital task in supporting our city’s democracy. We thank everyone involved in the GLA and London boroughs in delivering our delayed 2021 elections, in what were very difficult circumstances indeed.

“This report makes 11 recommendations, of which 10 have cross-party support, and these range from helping more blind and partially sighted Londoners to vote with ease, to making sure any potential clash of major elections is avoided in 2024.

“One factor of concern to us was the record number of rejected ballots recorded in this election, even though this could not have altered the final result. We are concerned that more complicated new ballot paper designs did not receive sufficient preparation or testing in advance, and that communication to voters of how to cast their preferences for candidates and parties was inadequate, so we have made important recommendations for improvement in this area of planning and communication.

“As the planning begins for 2024, I hope this report guides the next election and enables it to be run even better in terms of effectiveness, efficiency and democracy.”