Voter Turnout in British South Asian Communities at the 2001 General Election

Date01 August 2007
Published date01 August 2007
DOI10.1111/j.1467-856x.2006.00261.x
Subject MatterArticle
Voter Turnout in British South Asian Communities at the 2001 General Election doi: 10.1111/j.1467-856x.2006.00261.x
B J P I R : 2 0 0 7 V O L 9 , 3 9 6 – 4 1 2
Voter Turnout in British South Asian
Communities at the 2001 General
Election

David Cutts, Edward Fieldhouse, Kingsley Purdam,
David Steel and Mark Tranmer
The turnout of 59.4 per cent at the 2001 general election was the lowest since 1918. It has been
widely assumed that ethnic or religious minority electors are less likely to vote in general elections
than white electors. Furthermore, electoral participation is regarded as both an indicator of the
integration of minority communities and the quality of the democratic system. However, existing
research that attempts to provide ethnic or religious specific estimates relies heavily on survey data
or aggregate data. Most surveys do not overcome the problems of misreporting, non-response bias
and a small sample size. Ecological estimates for minority groups are based on potentially spurious
inferences from aggregate to individual data. In short, evidence of lower turnout among ethnic and
religious minority electors remains inconclusive. Here we use an alternative method to gauge the
level of participation among South Asian electors at the 2001 general election. This article uses
evidence from complete sets of marked electoral registers from a random sample of 97 wards at the
2001 general election, analysed using names recognition software. This allows a unique analysis of
electoral turnout among Britain’s South Asian communities. Using religious origin to aid com-
parisons with other data sources, the results show turnout is as high or higher for South Asian
electors than the rest of the population, but this varies by religious groups. For Hindus, turnout was
significantly higher than the overall rate. Also using a multi-level logistic regression model, we find
that South Asian turnout is statistically significantly higher in areas where there are more South
Asians in the electorate, which is where overall turnout rates are much lower.

Keywords: South Asian; turnout; ecological fallacy; multilevel model
Introduction
Turnout at the 2001 general election was at its lowest under the full democratic
franchise. A recent Electoral Commission report argued that, while Black, Pakistani
and Bangladeshi electors are less likely to vote in general elections, Indian electors
are more likely than their white counterparts to turn out (Purdam et al. 2002).
However, existing research that attempts to provide ethnic or religious-specific
estimates relies heavily on survey data or aggregate data. Most surveys do not
overcome the problems of misreporting, non-response bias and a small sample size.
Ecological estimates for minority groups are based on potentially spurious infer-
ences from aggregate to individual data. In short, evidence of lower turnout among
ethnic and religious-minority electors remains inconclusive. More reliable data are
needed to inform the intense policy debate around widening differences in partici-
pation, and to give us a better understanding of who participates in elections in
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Political Studies Association

S O U T H A S I A N T U R N O U T I N 2 0 0 1
397
Britain. This article provides arguably the most accurate estimate of electoral
turnout among Britain’s South Asian communities at the 2001 general election that
has been possible to date.
We use an innovative approach to estimate turnout, employing electoral rolls that
are manually marked to indicate who has voted, allowing us to make comprehen-
sive and reliable nationally representative estimates of South Asian electoral par-
ticipation in Britain. In this article, we consider turnout as a percentage of registered
voters, which understates total non-participation (see Todd and Eldridge 1987;
Smith 1993). Levels of registration will be considered in further research. This study
represents the first large-scale, nationally representative systematic analysis of
actual (rather than reported) turnout among South Asian communities. Unlike
previous research into South Asian participation, we will measure individual-level
turnout using marked electoral registers without relying on turnout reported in
sample surveys or ecological inference (Swaddle and Heath 1989). Using religious
origin to aid comparisons with other data sources, we find that South Asian turnout
at the 2001 general election in England and Wales was as high, if not slightly higher,
than the overall rate. Indeed, for Hindus, turnout was significantly higher than the
overall rate. Also, South Asians vote in greater numbers where there are more
South Asians in the electorate and where turnout for the rest of the population is
much lower.
Variations in Turnout
While levels of participation in modern democracies continue to decline, participa-
tion is increasingly seen as a key aspect of the accountability of governments and of
citizenship. Turnout at the 2001 general election (59.4 per cent) was at its lowest
since 1918. This marked a dramatic fall since 1997 (71.6 per cent) and follows a
period during which there was an underlying downward trend since turnout
peaked in 1950 (Denver and Hands 1997; Heath and Taylor 1999; Clarke et al.
2004).
Voter turnout in Britain is unevenly distributed, and varies between different
social and demographic groups and between geographical areas (Swaddle and
Heath 1989; Johnston and Pattie 1998). In particular, ethnic minority groups are
often identified as having lower levels of participation in the formal democratic
process (Anwar 1990; Ali and Percival 1993; Saggar 1998). However, there are
substantial differences in turnout and registration between South Asian popula-
tions. For example, people of Indian heritage have been found to have compa-
rable (and sometimes higher) rates of turnout than the white population. Recent
research, based on the 1997 British Election Survey (BES) which employed an
‘Ethnic Minority’ booster sample, found turnout rates of 82.4 per cent for
Indians, 75.6 per cent for Pakistanis, 73.9 per cent for Bangladeshis and 78.7 per
cent for white voters (Saggar 1998). There was no similar booster sample in the
2001 BES, but a MORI survey (which overestimated turnout among all groups)
showed little difference in Asian and white turnout rates in 2001 (Purdam et al.
2002).
At the area level, previous research also shows that constituency turnout is related
to a number of social and political factors including class composition, housing
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Political Studies Association
BJPIR, 2007, 9(3)


398
D AV I D C U T T S E T A L .
characteristics, age profile and the electoral and tactical context (Denver and Hands
1997; Johnston and Pattie 1998). The ethnic profile was also found to be a signifi-
cant factor, with South Asian populations negatively associated with turnout after
controlling for other factors. However, it is noted that this ecological relationship
does not necessarily hold at the individual level. Although South Asians live in
areas of lower than average turnout, their own levels of participation may be higher
than an ecological model might suggest. This is an example of the ecological fallacy
(Robinson 1950).
Indeed, although low voter turnout at an aggregate level may be associated with
concentrations of South Asian communities, evidence at the level of the indi-
vidual voter points towards higher levels of turnout among sections of the South
Asian population, notably Indian Asians. This has been shown using survey data
at a national level and a case study (Anwar 1990; LeLohe 1990; Saggar 1998).
Furthermore, because turnout has a strong spatial dimension, we might expect
South Asians to have lower levels of turnout as they live in areas characterised by
low turnout. For example, South Asian voters are relatively more likely to live in
safe seats and in areas of economic deprivation (e.g. inner-city areas). The geo-
graphical distribution of the South Asian population and the characteristics of
those areas may have an impact on levels of turnout. However, until now we have
not known the relative levels of turnout of South Asian and white voters within
areas (i.e. whether low turnout is characteristic of a specific community or a
specific area).
Measurement Issues
It was noted above that the unequal quality of survey data on turnout within South
Asian communities has meant that past evidence is largely inconclusive. Firstly, in
many sample surveys there is usually an insufficient sample to look at ethnic or
religious differences, and secondly non-voting is widely under-reported. For
example, a MORI survey taken shortly after the 2001 general election showed
turnout among white and Asian voters to exceed 80 per cent, compared to 70 per
cent among whites, when in reality turnout in the election as a whole was only 59
per cent. Also, there were only a small number of Asian respondents (108 Asian
voters in phase 2 of the MORI survey) and a limited disaggregation of identity
classifications. Given these problems, any inferences from the MORI survey must be
treated with a degree of caution (Purdam et al. 2002).
There are various reasons for survey unreliability including biased reporting of
respondents and differential non-response to surveys (Kalton 1983; Swaddle and
Heath 1989; Heath and Taylor 1999). The recent Electoral Commission report
concludes that ‘there is a need to do more research on what people do rather than
what they say they do’ (Purdam et al. 2002). However,...

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