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Every election is now accompanied with campaigns to encourage us to vote.

Perhaps the next Government should legislate to ensure everyone has to vote.

At each election we are reminded of the humbling sacrifices made by brave men and women who fought for this right.

The story of how reformers battled to win the vote for all men and then all women is inspiring - but not inspiring enough to get everyone to take the trip to the polling station or go to the trouble of filling out a postal ballot.

1. Turnout has declined in Wales

There was a time when people in Wales were the most likely to vote in the UK.

In 1958, 82.6% of us voted, compared to a UK average of 78.7%. By 1987 our turnout had slipped to 78.9% but we were still well ahead of any other nation and the UK rate of 75.3%.

But in 2010 and 2015 we fell behind England with just 65.7% voting in the last election.

There is a real risk in Wales that it has already become normal in many households not to vote.

Parties will identify which people are unlikely to vote and conclude they can safely ignore these men and women when campaigning and writing manifestos. It also means the parts of the population who do turn up at polling stations have a disproportionate influence in our democracy.

2. More than half the electorate stay away from Assembly elections

One of the sadnesses of Wales' great experiment with devolution is that while it has thrilled people who can see the real opportunity this nation has to craft distinct and creative policies the majority of the electorate are left cold.

There has never been an election to the Assembly in which even half the electorate has taken part. Only 45% cast a vote in 2016, although this was an improvement on 2003 when a mere 38% took part.

3. The sense of a 'duty' to vote has nose-dived

Campaigners can encourage young people to rock the vote but when potential first-time voters look at the options they may feel baffled or even appalled.

The Commons Library team looked at the factors driving political disengagement and reported that in 2015 only 18% of people in Wales were satisfied with Britain's political system, compared with 22% in Scotland and 25% in England.

We talk about parties having heartlands in different areas of Wales but many people feel no connection with the groups vying to form the next government.

Only 66% of people aged 23-32 identified with a party, compared with 84% of those aged 73-82.

Not only do many people feel little affinity with parties, there is scant trust in government. The share of the population who trusted Government to put the nation's needs first tumbled from a not particularly brilliant 38% in 1996 to just 17% in 2013.

If politics looks thoroughly grimy, should we be surprised if people regard the very act of voting as a bit grubby?

The Library experts noted: "The British Social Attitudes survey found that the proportion of people who believe they have a duty to vote has decreased from 76% in 1987 to 57% in 2013."

4. The absence of millions of people from the polls is distorting our democracy

Many people who do consider it a civic responsibility to vote may feel some sympathy for their neighbours who don't go near a polling station. If parliament was a shoe shop it would go out of business - there are very few people for whom any political party is a perfect fit.

Some citizens may like the Conservatives' stance on tax but be horrified by Theresa May's vision for Brexit. Other voters may admire Plaid's long-term ambitions for Wales but be put off by its left-leaning policies; some people might support Labour's values but have doubts about whether the frontbench team are ready to move into ministerial offices.

But it's that act of wrestling with tough choices which is at the heart of the democratic process. The collective wisdom of the electorate is required to ensure we get the government the country needs and that our communities are championed by the best representatives we can find.

This is the "duty" at the heart of living in a democracy. The question is whether it should be an optional duty.

5. Paying tax isn't an optional duty, so why should voting be?

Britain has a tradition of leaving it up to citizens to decide whether or not they want to vote. A very different attitude is taken to the payment of taxes - but why?

The UK is running a democratic deficit which distorts the priorities of politicians. Parties have finite resources at their disposal and it won't have escaped the attention of strategists that in 2015 only 43% of 20-24 year olds voted compared with 78% of people aged 65-plus.

If you were responsible for delivering a victory in a knife-edge constituency and had limited cash and a small number of volunteers, which group would you target with your resources?

Our present system gives parties a perverse incentive to pay more attention to people who are already thriving in our society because they are most likely to vote. The Commons Library reported that "77% of 18-34 year olds educated to a degree level were estimated to be on the electoral register in December 2015, compared with 57% of those with no qualification".

6. Compulsory voting will force parties to focus on neglected groups and communities

How will parties design policies to boost the life chances of people who need the most help if they are not knocking on their doors and competing for their vote?

If candidates knew that every adult was going to vote in an election they would spend the weeks leading up to June 8 working at fever pitch to identify the issues that would win the support of people who have until now never taken part. Parties would search within these low-turnout communities for local candidates who could galvanise the population.

7. This could jump-start our democracy

The portion of the electorate today written off as "disengaged" would be seen a rich field ripe for harvest.

Hang on, you might say. Isn't not voting a form of democratic expression?

Absolutely. But if you are appalled by the choices on offer you can spoil your ballot - a freedom which would still exist if voting is made compulsory.

If millions more people were compelled to take a look at the options on the ballot paper, a precious percentage of these men and women might feel the country can do better than this and think for the first time about standing for election themselves. Compulsory voting could be the revolution we need to get citizens off the sidelines and onto the pitch.

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Seven reasons why compulsory voting could electrify democracy

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Every election is now accompanied with campaigns to encourage us to vote. Perhaps the next Government should legislate to ensure everyone has to vote. At each election we are reminded of the humbling sacrifices made by brave men and women who fought for this right.

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Has lots of information around voting and how it works

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A simple, unbiased political resource. We help young adults learn about the importance of voting and empower them to make informed decisions.

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Young people prefer Labour over the Conservatives, according to opinion polls. But the majority don't vote. So if they did, what would happen?

The turnout gap

In the 2015 general election, the gap between old voters and young voters was massive.

Just 43% of 18-24-year-olds went to the polls, compared with 78% of people aged 65 or over, according to Ipsos Mori. (To estimate how many old and young people vote at elections, you have to look at opinion polls). That's a huge gap of 35 percentage points.

There's been a similar gulf for the past 20 years, but it wasn't always like that.

As recently as 1992, the gap was just 12 percentage points. Then, 63% of 18-24-year-olds voted. The old aren't voting more now - but the young are voting far less.

In some ways, the low turnout isn't surprising. Young people are mobile and many are students who live away from home - groups which have among the lowest levels of voter registration, according to the Electoral Commission. They are often voting for the first time, so haven't developed a habit, unlike many older people.

Young people with quite high levels of political engagement also often distrust the established political parties.

But young people face a dilemma. Groups with low turnouts tend to be of less interest to politicians who want to be elected.

"It's a no-brainer. Why spend time chasing non-voters rather than concentrating all your energy and effort on those who do vote," says David Cowling, a political opinion polling specialist at King's College London.

But if young people turned out like old people, and 78% of 18-24-year-olds had voted in 2015, that would have equated to almost two million extra votes.

"If two million more 18-24-year-olds voted in elections do we really think that issues like housing, low paid, insecure jobs and student fees would not immediately move up the political agenda?" says Cowling.

The party preference gap

Polling consistently shows that young people are more left-wing than older people. So if they were as eager to vote as pensioners, would Labour have a better chance of winning the election?

In 2015, 43% of 18-24-year-olds who cast their ballot voted for Labour, while 27% voted Conservative, 8% UKIP and 5% Lib Dem.

By contrast, 47% of voters aged 65 or over cast their ballot for Conservative, 23% voted Labour, 17% UKIP and 8% Lib Dem.

A recent poll of nearly 13,000 people by Yougov suggests 2017 is no different, with Labour 19 percentage points ahead among 18-24-year-olds and the Conservatives 4 percentage points ahead among the over 65s.

Cowling says there is some truth to the "cliche" that people become more right-wing as they grow older. But "it is not some iron law of human nature" as Labour could not have secured its massive 1997 victory without the support of millions of older voters.

He is also sceptical about the youth appeal of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

"Labour talk a big game in terms of Mr Corbyn's personal attraction to young voters, as well as their attraction towards more radical Labour policies in this election. But I see little evidence of any significant shift to Labour among young voters compared with previous elections, nor any greater enthusiasm to vote in 2017 than in previous elections," he says.

So what would happen if 18-24-year-olds turned out like pensioners, but kept their voting preferences?

We've already established a scenario where a turnout of 78% of 18-24-year-olds leads to an extra two million votes.

Assuming the two million extra votes are spread out among parties in the same proportions as the 2.5 million actual votes - a big assumption given it's difficult to predict the intentions of people who don't vote - all the parties would benefit, but Labour would get the biggest boost. They would receive an extra 860,000 votes. The Tories would gain 540,000 votes.

Overall, that would lead to a modest rise in the share of the vote for Labour, and a modest fall in the share of the vote for the Conservatives. But it would be less than 1% of the vote.

This might not sound like a lot, but it could mean five to 10 seats transferring from Conservative to Labour. And, in a tight election such as 2015, when the Tories ended up with a majority of 12 seats, it could make a big difference.

"We should be careful about our predictions but it seems the potential extra two million young voters could have changed the outcome of 2015, robbing the Conservatives of their fragile majority and forcing them to soldier on as a minority government or entering another coalition," says Cowling.

"In a close election every vote counts."

The figures assume that the extra votes are spread evenly across the country, but in real life, that is unlikely to be the case, as young people tend to live in more urban areas, and cities are more likely to vote Labour anyway.

In fact nine out of the 10 seats where young voters are the greatest share of the population, such as Sheffield Central and Cardiff Central, were won by Labour in 2015.

So a higher turnout among young voters could mean a slightly bigger share for Labour, but with many of those extra votes piling up in seats that the party would expect to win anyway.

Grey power

There is also another factor that makes it harder for young people to change the outcome of the election - the sheer volume of older people.

In 2015, there were 5.7 million aged 18-24-years-old in Britain, according to the Office for National Statistics. By comparison, there were 11.3 million people aged 65 and over.

So on numbers alone, the pensioners win out.

Even if we look at a larger group of younger people - 18-34-year-olds, which totalled 14.3 million people in 2015 - and apply the 78% turnout figure to them, it would still lead to only a modest rise in Labour's vote share. About 1%. Again, this could equate to about 10 seats.

That's because although there would be an extra four million votes by 18-34-year-olds, the 25-34-year-old age group is much more evenly split between Conservatives and Labour. In 2015, 36% of 25-34-year-olds who cast their ballot voted for Labour, while 33% voted Conservative.

The (Bre)X(it) factor

The 2017 general election has been dubbed the Brexit election, and yet how much impact the result of the EU referendum will have on the way people vote is relatively unknown.

Once again, age was a dividing line in the 2016 EU ballot. About 75% of 18-24-year-olds voted to Remain in the EU, while 60% among those aged 65 and over voted for Brexit.

How many young people turned out to vote is less clear, with polls suggesting a mixed picture.

There were also three million extra voters in 2016, compared with the 2015 general election, according to Cowling. Who they are is a mystery, but he suspects they were not made up of young Remainers in large part.

It remains to be seen whether, voting appetites whetted, those additional voters will return to polling stations in 8 June. And, if they do, what difference they could make.
Data journalism by John Walton and Daniel Wainwright. Methodology Figures from Ipsos MORI and the ONS were used to estimate how increased turnout among 18-24-year-olds might have had an effect on the 2015 general election. MORI's data was used to estimate the turnout of different age groups as well as which party they supported. The data from the ONS was then used to calculate the number of voters in each age group. In 2015 there were fewer than six million 18-24 year-olds in Great Britain, using a turnout figure from MORI of 43% this would give a rough figure of under 2.5 million actual voters in that age band. If their turnout was then boosted to match that of the over 65s (78%) this creates an extra 2 million voters. It was then assumed that the voting preferences of the imagined new voters were the same as that recorded by MORI for those in their age group who did vote. This gives all the parties a boost in voters, but due to its popularity with young voters in MORI's 2015 data in this scenario the Labour Party would have benefited the most.

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If young people voted bigly, would it change everything?

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Young people prefer Labour over the Conservatives, according to opinion polls. But the majority don't vote. So if they did, what would happen? In the 2015 general election, the gap between old voters and young voters was massive. Just 43% of 18-24-year-olds went to the polls, compared with 78% of people aged 65 or over, according to Ipsos Mori.

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Debate.org is a dynamic social community where you can voice your opinion on today's hottest issues.

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A Level British Politics | Should voting in the UK be made compulsory?

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Guide to UK elections, electoral systems, voting, voter behaviour, referendums, by-elections and political party systems

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