Voter Registration, Election Turnout and Compulsory Voting

Debate between Lord Brennan of Canton and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Thursday 3rd September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I stress to the noble Lord that I said it has taken a long time for Australia to get where it has. It started off with compulsory voting in 1924. The 1922 election saw a less than 60% turnout. That has risen, as he said, to 91% in the 2025 election, but that is a result of a number of steps it has taken, including the registration steps that we are looking at now. It is an iterative process and we need to move ahead with it carefully. We make different choices in different countries about the way we move this forward. At the moment, the Government believe that we have to focus on taking down barriers to participation. That is why we are taking steps in the Representation of the People Bill, which we will be debating shortly, to make voting easier and more accessible before we go forward with any further steps.

[Lord Brennan of Canton (Lab)]

My Lords, to some, compulsory voting might seem a rather illiberal proposal. Have the Government considered incentivised voting instead, perhaps in the form of a National Lottery draw for all voters on the occasion of each general election, with the winning prize going to one of the voters—or, if they object, it could be donated to charity instead?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am all for innovation in election processes, but that might cause some problems among members of our community who do not like to take part in gambling. However, we have been doing some voter piloting. The key thing here is to tackle the barriers to people getting involved in the democratic process. We know what they are. The Electoral Commission did a review very recently on this, and people were very clear that it is lack of information about parties and candidates, negative perception of the voting system and that voting is too complicated. Anyone who has been on the doorstep trying to persuade someone to go out to vote will realise the misconception about how voting works. We have to tackle those barriers before we start thinking about the more exciting innovation that my noble friend speaks about.