To wonder why turnout for local elections is always so low?

[ScreamingValenta]

I was looking at the turnout for my area in yesterday's elections and it was very low - like most other areas which have declared. It doesn't seem unusual for the majority not to vote.

I always vote, although I admit sometimes struggle to find a reason to vote for one candidate over the others.

I'm not criticising anyone's choice, but I'm curious to know why people apparently don't want to vote - is this down to disillusionment with the parties/candidates, apathy, or other reasons? Does anyone have any thoughts? If you didn't turn out yesterday, why was this?

@Yorkshirebetty Yes, the manifesto in terms of what they were seeking to achieve in the area was very sound - I hope the candidate was cheered to get a few votes.

@BumpowderSneezeonAndSnot That's a good point - people tend to blur the lines between local and general elections and vote for the party's policies rather than the candidate's objectives for the ward/borough.

I know many people who vote for different parties for different elections. This is why I don't like it when people affiliate themselves to one party at all costs.

I voted but DP didn't.

He at the moment is totally disenfranchised from all of the political parties. He feels that the local council does not really have much political power, and it makes little difference to the day to day running of the local area.

It doesn't matter who is in power, we are in a strong Labour area, the outcome will be somewhat the same. He sees it as revolving about complaints about bin collections.

I always vote, but we had no canvassers or leaflets. (One candidate lives on our road) I struggled to find any info online specific to our local area, even on the local party FB pages. We had 5 candidates for 2 seats, the first time I seriously considered spoiling my vote.

The 2 elected are the incumbents & a husband and wife team. I'm sure they will do the best they can, but it is hardly a diverse representation.

I think we did fairly well then. Only 2 candidates (lab, con), had a leaflet for each, turnout 42%, which I think is pretty good. Only downside is that we only had 2 candidates. I've voted lib dem and green before, but we never get them standing now.

@Ginosaji They didn't happen everywhere in the UK - there were none in Wales, NI or Scotland this year.

@Woofygoldberg - your partner isn't disenfranchised, that's the whole point. The franchise was gained after some struggle for men, and a longer, more protracted struggle for women. It's his choice not to vote, but no one has taken it from him.

Although these are local council elections there is some party politics at play, Corbyn and labour were hyping up taking London by storm and apparently had planned a victory in Barnet.

Traditionally the sitting government gets a kicking, the fact they haven't is now damage control for labour to suggest it means nothing.

The turn out for local elections is usually low turn out anyway, but that would not have mattered had labour turned all the councils they was hoping to.

*planned a victory parade in Barnet

@Ginosaji ... other than a by-election in NI for the West Tyrone seat, retained by Sinn Fein. That had a much better turnout - 55%.

I can't comment on the areas that have voted this week as we weren't one of them. But when we last had local elections I was so angry because we hadn't had any information whatsoever about the candidates. I even searched online and I couldn't find anything. Nothing about what their policies or views were. So if I, as an active engaged voter can't find anything to help me vote, what chance is there of less engaged people doing it?

I'm another one who nearly missed this election. We had poll cards back in March and not a dicky bird since - no leaflets, no canvassing not even any signs on lamposts. I assumed it was because we are such a safe Labour seat. All Councillors bar two are Labour and it seems that the opposition don't want to waste their money and Labour know they are onto a sure thing and can't be arsed.
Two of the candidates, including the incumbant, do not live in my ward so I voted for the one who did knowing it wasn't going to make a scrap of difference.

@TheHodgeoftheHedge Does your council usually have a safe majority? It's my experience that candidates in safe boroughs tend to be complacent if they're in the majority; or will only do token canvassing if there's little chance of a seat.

My dd had her first official right to vote yesterday. I called her to tell her we were leaving to pop over the road so put some shoes on. She replied that she couldn't be bothered because she hadn't researched and no one had leafleted or canvassed. I was beyond furious and lambasted her like I've never done before.

She's a well educated intelligent girl but I couldn't tolerate keeping quiet with her lax attitude!

@ScreamingValenta im in kent lol

@Ginosaji Guessing yours might be a safe council, then, where they don't bother canvassing - several posters are reporting similar experience of 'blink and you'd miss it' elections.

@Yorkshirebetty You are correct, I didn't mean disenfranchised , I think I meant disillusioned. He feels that that non of the Parties really currently represent him (as do I) we had no Lib Dem, Green or Independent Candidates.

We didn’t get polling cards and no canvassing. I had to email to check we were on the register. I couldn’t find anything until the day before the election when the candidates had about 100 words each in the local paper. And those 100 words were sound bites that the constituency would like rather than the ward. We have a library closing down in our village and nothing was said about that, purely parking charges in the town centre (which is a fair point) and then countywide issues. And some showboating of how wonderful they are. I did vote but honestly can’t blame people that didnt. Fucking joke.

@ScreamingValenta but not even getting a polling card?? Thats rather odd, i voted in the general election and the referendum with no probs as I received polling cards both times, but this time nothing! And i live at the same address

@Woofygoldberg - I didn't mean to be pedantic, but I hear that term a lot, and it frustrates me . I can understand why he's disillusioned, especially if there's no alternative candidate to the big two!

@ScreamingValenta

Yes, I guess it is. grrrr I'm still annoyed about it!

It might just be that there were no elections in your authority, @Ginosaji.

You can check on the BBC website by entering your postcode:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cz3nmp2eyxgt/england-local-elections-2018

Not everywhere was having elections. Map here. If you were in an area with elections and you didn't get a polling card you need to check that you are up to date on the electoral register.

Candidates here were very active. We were visited 3 times by the incumbent (Lib Dems), including on election Day, and also by the Tory candidate. Not sure if this had any impression on the turnout though!

I voted I vote at every chance but turn out was low. The greens even won a seat here but cons overall. Only one leaflet no actual canvassing seemed to happen.

We have had one leaflet thrown through the door for one of the three candidates standing in our ward. Did even know who the other two were before going to vote. If I hadn't the card through the door and a friend that was standing in another ward I wouldn't have known an election was on. No wonder people can be bothered to vote when the candidates don't bother.

I feel very strongly that "voting" should be compulsory like in other countries. If you don't want to vote for anyone, you can spoil your paper, leave it blank, whatever, but everyone should have to do it. I think there would have been some drastically different results over the years.