Increasing Electoral Turnout in the UK 2005 General Election: A Field Experiment
This research tested whether an intervention from a neutral and non-partisan source could raise turnout in the UK General Election of 2005. Whilst there have been many tests of methods to raise turnout in the UK, such as using pilot authorities for postal ballots, there has been no use of randomised control trials (RCTs), which is one of the most scientific forms of social investigation, having the status of a 'gold standard' in medical research, for example. The core of the experimental method is to assign the voters randomly to treatment and non-treatment groups, which allows the researchers to observe whether an intervention raises turnout in a group that is identical in all other observed respects to the one where there is no intervention. The project tested whether telephone canvassing or a personal call to the home can raise turnout. To conduct the experiment 6,900 voters were randomly selected from the electoral register for the constituency of Wythenshawe and Sale East.
Professor Peter John and Tessa Brannan presented their early findings at a seminar that formed part of the 'Civil Renewal in Action' seminar series on 27 September 2005.
An article about how the research was conducted was published in Representation in September 2006:
- Brannan, T. & John, P. (2006) ' How to mobilise the electorate: Lessons from the University of Manchester 'Get out the Vote' experiment ' Representation Vol. 42 No. 3, pp209-221
The University of Manchester has been working in cooperation with the McDougall Trust (www.mcdougall.org.uk) as part of this project.