‘Simplify voting’ recommends committee

The UK should learn lessons from the Scottish referendum and give votes to 16 and 17 year olds and make it easier to register to vote, a Commons committee has recommended.

The Commons Political Reform Committee elections could be “re-energised” if people could register to vote online, and up to the day itself. It said general elections should be held on weekends or bank holidays to drive up turnout.

Labour MP Graham Allen, who heads the committee, said: "If we do not take urgent action to make elections more accessible to the public and convince them it is worth voting, we will be facing a crisis of democratic engagement."

People must register to vote by 20 April to be able to vote in the general election on 7 May.

Meanwhile in a written submission to Holyrood’s European and External Relations Committee, politics academic Dr Eve Hepburn said Scotland has an opportunity to develop a “Scottish model of democracy” in the wake of the referendum.

"Scotland currently has a high level of name-recognition within the international community, and indeed, the international public at large, for its recent referendum on independence. However, instead of highlighting within-UK tensions of 'being on the brink of breaking up the UK', there is an opportunity to develop an alternative, enduring narrative of Scottish democratic engagement," she writes.

Dr Hepburn is due to give evidence to committee today.

Read Holyrood's analysis about how electoral reform may become inevitable.