The effects of IER in Southend-on-Sea

               

The voter population in Southend-on-Sea has shrunk by 1.6% in two and a half years. Since we have a growing population one cannot escape the thought the changes to electoral registration has been the cause.

This table shows the latest data for voter registration in the seventeen wards that make up the Borough of Southend-on-Sea.

	2012	Sep 2014	Sep 2015	Mar 2016	% change Sep 2014 to Mar 2016
Belfairs	7461	7521	7486	7414	-1.4
Blenheim Park	7954	7980	7994	7863	-1.5
Chalkwell	7395	7241	7184	6998	-3.4
Eastwood Park	7620	7628	7568	7556	-0.9
Kursaal	7507	7793	7692	7488	-3.9
Leigh	7446	7494	7480	7338	-2.1
Milton	7830	7382	7568	7288	-1.3
Prittlewell	7805	7860	7771	7690	-2.2
Shoeburyness	8288	8524	8614	8545	0.3
Southchurch	7643	7693	7603	7526	-2.2
St Laurence	7610	7502	7517	7455	-0.6
St Luke's	8190	8004	8002	8007	0.3
Thorpe	7520	7473	7477	7417	-0.7
Victoria	7349	7358	7269	7237	-1.6
West Leigh	7158	7118	7131	7086	-0.4
West Shoebury	7534	7466	7446	7373	-1.2
Westborough	7621	7626	7609	7360	-3.5
	129931	129663	129411	127641	-1.6

Two wards have seen a modest rise in voter numbers (Shoeburyness and St Luke's), otherwise it is a story of shrinking electorates.

Kursaal tops the shrinkage list with 3.9% decrease in voter numbers. this is closely followed by Westborough (down by 3.5%) and Chalkwell (3.4%)

A more accurate register is in everyone's interest, and this is what Individual Electoral Registration sought to do. However, I think we can see that the reverse is happening.  This legislation is disenfranchising significant numbers, and this is not good for our democracy.

Quite what James Diddridge and Sir David Amess, the borough's two Members of Parliament, make of this is anyone's guess, but since the new constituency boundaries will use the latest electoral roll they will at least have an interest in this data.

Incidentally, if we are meant to believe these numbers (and that, after all, is the Government's intentions) then Chalkwell is four-fifths (81.9%) the size of  Shoeburyness - which suggests to me that some revision of ward boundaries is overdue.

For older data please go to The effects of IER.