DAVID GROSSMAN:            Britain's changed a lot since the 
dress code at polling stations was Sunday coat, best hat and medals.

VOICE OVER:                "Polling was exceptionally 
heavy in all districts. Well over eighty per cent of the electorate voted." 


GROSSMAN:                    In nineteen-ninety-seven 
turnout was down to seventy per cent.
 
VOICE OVER:                "Even centenarians exercised 
their democratic right." 

GROSSMAN:                    And at one recent by-election 
fewer than one in five voters managed to give the tellers anything to do. 
 Some at Westminster warn of a crisis in democracy.
Politicians are so eager to get into this place they can't really understand 
why so many of their compatriots can't even be bothered to vote. Some countries, 
like Australia, have compulsory voting. But here that's frowned on as being 
ever so slightly un-British. Voting is, after all, an expression of freedom, 
so forcing people to vote is somewhat contradictory and also potentially 
very unpopular. Instead the government is looking at ways of rewarding 
voters with inducements, in the jargon,  positive reinforcement. But to 
critics the idea is nothing less than bribery.

NIGEL EVANS MP:                This is not the way. We've 
got to encourage people to go and vote in elections, particularly at the 
general election when you're electing members of parliament to the mother 
of parliaments, and we don't want to turn the general election into some 
glorified car boot sale where the government will be handing out gifts 
as a favour for the fact that you've gone to vote. 

GROSSMAN:                    The idea of rewarding 
voting has come from a report by a committee of Foreign Office mandarins. 
They were worried that Britain's reputation abroad and its ability to espouse 
democracy was being compromised by low turn out.  British diplomats were 
warning their bosses in London that the UK was in danger of becoming ridiculous 
in the eyes of overseas governments. 
The Foreign Office Oversight and Liaison Sub-committee began work on a 
series of far-reaching and potentially very controversial proposals.  They 
looked at using cash payments, gifts and even the lottery in an effort 
to get more people voting. 
Their hush-hush report coincided with the noisy bidding process for the 
 lottery franchise. Minister told the frontrunner, Sir Richard Branson, 
that, if successful, he would be expected to give out free lottery tickets 
to voters - perhaps even as part of the ballot paper. 

SIR RICHARD BRANSON:            The government made it clear 
to us that if we won it they wanted to make sure that we participated with 
them in using lottery tickets to encourage people to vote.  In one sense 
I thought it was quite a fun idea, but it just, when you really examine 
it, I think it actually has rather serious implications about democracy 
and the way people vote and the freedom to go and vote and the reasons 
for voting.  

GROSSMAN:                    And what happened?
 
BRANSON:                    Ah well as you know we 
didn't win the lottery,  so we passed it over to Camelot and obviously 
it will be they who will be handing out these lottery tickets. 
 
GROSSMAN;                    But is there anything 
wrong with the idea?  Victorian bribery laws ban gifts from parties but 
some experts say a voters' lottery would be okay. 

DR DAVID BUTLER:            I think the lottery principle 
is quite reasonable and say, if you vote, you have got a chance of winning 
a prize, that is not going to subvert an individual voter to vote in a 
particular way.  The bribes in the old days were to get you to vote in 
a specific way.  This time it's just to get you, the proposition is just 
to get you to vote.  That is much less objectionable.  

LEMBIT OPIK MP:                I have got huge worries 
about this lottery ticket idea.  Apart from the fact that you're more likely 
to be hit by an asteroid than to have the winning ticket, I'm worried that 
people will be more concerned about who wins the lottery than who wins 
the election.

GROSSMAN:                    The government's also 
pursuing other ideas.  The Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, 
Robin Corbett, has been asked to examine a range of voter inducements such 
as gifts and cash. He thinks the idea makes economic sense. 

ROBIN CORBETT MP:            That's the attraction of this 
because it costs the government nothing to do. You're giving people their 
own money back - while it looks generous on the one hand, it's not as if 
we have to open our wallets or the government has to open its wallet and 
put real money on the table. You're just recirculating what they've paid 
already, so, I suppose if you wanted to, you could get it back. You get 
the election out of the way and the next two budgets you could put a penny 
on income tax and get it back if it's cost you too much, so it's quite 
neat that. 

GROSSMAN:                    So what sort of gifts 
would work - would any of this lot wow the voters into turning up?  Any 
of these, do you think, would help people to get out to vote, as a gift?

UNNAMED WOMAN:            No.

UNNAMED WOMAN:            The pineapple

GROSSMAN:                    What about cash?

UNNAMED WOMAN:            Uh.

GROSSMAN:                    You like the booze?

UNNAMED MAN:                Yes, oh yes, well.

UNNAMED WOMAN:            No, I don't think so.

GROSSMAN:                    Nothing?

UNNAMED WOMAN:            Chocolates would possibly work, 
yes.

UNNAMED WOMAN:            No, I have no faith in anybody, 
I'm afraid.

GROSSMAN:                    Bubble bath? 

UNNAMED PERSON:            Laughs

GROSSMAN:                    A hundred pounds?

UNNAMED WOMAN:            No, I'm a real cynic.

UNNAMED MAN:                Yes, I'll take cash

GROSSMAN:                    A thousand pounds?

UNNAMED WOMAN:            The cans of beer might.

GROSSMAN:                    Ten-thousand?

But most reluctant voters probably do have a price.  On the Record has 
commissioned some polling research to find out what it could cost. With 
ten pounds on offer eighty-three per cent of voters would turn out. If 
offered twenty pounds, ninety-one per cent would trip willingly into the 
polling stations.  And fifty pounds would actually lead to a turn out of 
one-hundred-and-twelve per cent - clearly leading to concern about multiple 
voting.

EVANS:                    That could be open to so 
much abuse, and I think what you might find is that if the cash sum is 
large enough, that you will find people registering in all sorts of seats 
around the country and voting on polling day all over the country just 
to get the money in.  It will be one big cash bonanza for some people who 
will try and work the system to their own benefit. 

GROSSMAN:                    The idea is also not 
very popular with the Treasury. Giving each voter fifty pounds would cost 
the Exchequer over two-billion. True, Gordon Brown could put up taxes, 
but that would hardly incline all those hard won extra voters to vote Labour. 
 Instead the government wants to harness the power of the private sector. 
 In return for cash or products, private companies would be offered discreet 
and sensitive advertising at polling stations, or even on the ballot paper.

GROSSMAN:                    On the Record has obtained 
three sample ballot papers which were designed by a prominent ad agency 
for government consideration.  Two were given tentative approval. A third 
was completely ruled out.
The choice of gifts is obviously vital - some Tories detect Labour seeking 
out electoral advantage with the products that are used to tempt voters.

EVANS:                    This will be in the hands 
of the government and if they decide they want a higher turnout in certain 
seats, where they think it's marginal and they want their majorities either 
higher or indeed even to gain a seat, you could find that the gift is going 
to be very attractive to one group of people. Whereas in other seats where 
they really don't want a high turnout at all and they would far prefer 
people to stay at home, then you might find that the gift is not worth 
having - or indeed they, in some certain seats, they won't give a gift 
at all.  And that's got to be unfair.

GROSSMAN:                    But the government is 
trying to win all-party support for the idea by canvassing backbench opinion. 


OPIK:                        I was phoned up by 
a civil servant from the Home Office, who said, if they were going to dole 
out voters' gifts, would I prefer a box of chocolates or a bottle of sherry?

GROSSMAN:                    And what did you think?

OPIK:                        I said the chocolates, 
definitely.  I'm not very fond of sherry.

GROSSMAN:                    But what do you think 
of the idea, do you object to the concept?

OPIK:                        I've no objection 
to the concept of sherry, it's the taste I don't like. 

GROSSMAN:                    We live in an increasingly 
busy and commercial age and voting can seem a bit dull by comparison.  
Low turnout is a problem for democracies the world over.  But is bribery 
really the answer?

CORBETT:                    This one we thought, dry 
sherry, for the older voter.

GROSSMAN:                    The Chairman of the Commons 
Home Affairs Select Committee is very keen on incentives to vote.

CORBETT:                    CDs

GROSSMAN:                    He showed me a box full 
of suitable items.  The key, he believes, is to make sure it's all done 
tastefully. 

CORBETT:                    While members of all parties 
felt this was very worthwhile to look at all these imaginative ways of 
getting people to exercise their vote, we had some doubts.  What we didn't 
want to do was to make this look a complete joke.