We’re drawing ever nearer to what is likely to be one of the most closely fought and unpredictable general elections in some time. A key issue for Citizens Advice is ensuring that as many of our clients as possible are registered to vote and turn out on 7 May. This is one of the reasons why I have spent some time making various democracy-related visits in south London. In its own way, each visit taught or reminded me of an important lesson in how to make democracy real and vivid for citizens.
Tailor your message to your audience
My first visit was to Streatham Citizens Advice Bureau, where I met dedicated staff and volunteers and explained to them some of the work we will be doing on voter registration and democratic engagement in the run-up to the election. I was there as they opened up the bureau to the many people waiting in the rain for help solving their problems. As they poured into the waiting area I thought that this captive audience of citizens, many of whom belong to the groups who are most unlikely to be registered, provided the perfect opportunity to extol the virtues of voter registration and democratic engagement. How wrong I was.
When I introduced myself and said I was from Citizens Advice, clients thought I might have something useful and important to say. But as soon as I started speaking about the importance of voting, most of them switched off. This is only partly due to a lack of rhetorical flair on my part. It is also because these people had come to the bureau to get their problems solved and they couldn’t see how my contribution was helping in that regard. It may also be that many of those people in the waiting room lacked the psychological bandwidth to focus on many things other than their problems, let alone something as distant and abstract as ‘the importance of voting’.
