The 2024 South Yorkshire Mayoral election takes place today with many fearing another low voter turnout year. 

In 2018 the first South Yorkshire Mayoral election, then known as the Sheffield City Region Mayoral Election took place with Labour winning with 47.1% of the overall vote. 

Despite the considerable winning margin some have questioned how representative the result actually is with just 25.9% of the available electorate choosing to vote. A trend which continued in the 2022 Election in which 26.4% voted. Similarly council elections have also had low turnout, with last years election seeing lows of 15% turnout in areas of Sheffield.

This has lead some to question whether the council is doing enough to spread awareness for the election. 

Long-term Sheffield resident James Mooney said: “the council are not doing enough to raise awareness for the election.” He continued to say, “I won’t and haven’t personally voted on the last few occasions.”

Mr Mooney also said, “I don’t know enough about the candidates and some of my friends didn’t even know there was an election.” He also raised issue with the only information he gets being a half page spread of an A5 booklet.

In addition many feel there vote would be unnecessary because of the one-sided nature of politics with the outcome seeming like a foregone conclusion.

Political enthusiast Olivia Tankoua argued that people must use their “right to vote”, she said: “Voting is imperative as if nobody votes every year then the outcome will not truly reflect the wishes of the region.”

Turnout for Sheffield Central at the 2019 general election sat at 56.7% with 89,849 voters as per the Government website, a large increase compared to those of the recent Mayoral elections.

Politics student Florence Rushton said local elections are becoming “increasingly unimportant due to the lack of power given to local councils”.  She also argued that attention is decreasing due to the “increased polarisation” of politics in this country.

She also said: “People do not care about mayoral elections as much as the general election therefore they do not wish to engage regularly in politics they don’t care about.”

For information on how to vote in today’s election click the following link: https://www.southyorkshire-ca.gov.uk/election2024-voters