In the week of June 23rd, A total of 28 observers will be deployed to 12 different cities across the United Kingdom: London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast, Cardiff, Manchester, Oxford, Canterbury, Brighton, Portsmouth, Birmingham and Nottingham. In the lead-up to the Referendum, observers will meet with election observation experts, non-governmental organisations, counting officers and electoral commission members. They will also visit the UK parliament and representatives of the mission will attend the official briefing for observers in Manchester and, after the Referendum, the tabulation and announcement of the national result.
Based on the preliminary research undertaken for this mission, special focus will be on the turn-out of students and young people. Since the Referendum is organised in a period in which many students will be travelling home for the summer, students were encouraged through targeted campaigns to register both at their student and home address. It would also be interesting to analyse the number of postal and proxy votes that polling stations are confronted with, as this method is available to all UK voters unable to join the polls in person.
It will be the thirteenth mission since the start of AEGEE Election Observation in 2013. What is unique about this organisation is its focus on youth. There is no other electoral observation organisation focusing specifically on the role of youth in the electoral process, their participation in the campaign, their turn-out at elections and any specific issues that are related to this group. A further goal of AEGEE Election Observation is to engage young people, our electorates of the future, in the democratic process and to equip them with relevant experience of observing elections abroad.
This AEGEE observation mission will add valuable insights into the conduct of the Referendum in the UK and into the motivators and obstacles to political participation by young people in particular.
The next press release will be published right after referendum day and will contain observations and preliminary conclusions of the Mission, followed up by the Final Report.
For more information, please write to ben.jones@aegee.org or contact our Mission Coordinator Charlotte Wagenaar at +31633850633.