Profile: The Electoral Commission

The Electoral Commission is an independent body set up by the UK Parliament. Our aim is integrity and public confidence in the democratic process. We:

register political parties
make sure people understand and follow the rules on party and election finance
publish details of where parties and candidates get money from and how they spend it
set the standards for running elections and report on how well this is done
make sure people understand it is important to register to vote, and know how to vote
make sure boundary arrangements for local government in England are fair

Much of our work to raise awareness of the need to register to vote is targeted at groups of people that research tells us are less likely to register. Some black and minority ethnic people fall into those groups: particularly black African, black Caribbean and Chinese people. This is not the case for all minority ethnic groups: for example, research has consistently shown that people of Indian heritage are the most likely to vote in the UK.

In order to start to address lower registration levels among some BME groups, the Commission has worked to raise awareness and helped to ensure that BME people are not excluded from the political process. We produce voter registration and postal vote application forms in a variety of community languages including Arabic, Bengali and Chinese, which are available from our website at http://www.aboutmyvote.co.uk/languages.aspx.

In the run up to the 2008 local elections in England and Wales and the Greater London Authority elections in London, we ran a field marketing campaign to encourage BME people to register to vote. Field marketers who were themselves from BME communities were stationed in areas with high traffic such as shopping centres, where they could talk to people face-to-face, answer queries and directly address concerns people had about registering to vote. They also helped people to fill in registration forms on the spot.

In 2006 and 2007 the Commission’s Partnership Grants Scheme awarded funding to organisations working with a variety of under-registered groups (young people not in formal education, disabled people and BME people) as these organisations are well-placed to educate and inform people about issues. We awarded grants to projects run by several BME organisations, including Operation Black Vote, CEMVO Scotland and Sahara Communities Abroad. More information on these projects can be found on our website at http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/about-us/partnership-grants.

Back: Government