Over a third of UK adults want to vote by text

Voting proposals being considered by the Government

28 November 2006 11:07 GMT / By Amber Maitland

A new survey by the BBC suggests that Brits are eager to vote in the General Election by text rather than having to go to a polling station.

More than a third of UK adult mobile users said that they would be very interested in voting by text in a General Election. Amongst 25 to 34-year-olds, that figure increased to 45%. Out of all those surveyed, 30% used their mobiles to text votes to TV shows like X-Factor and Big Brother.

The survey by the BBC questioned over 2000 UK adults face to face about their mobile use, and categorised each into light, medium and heavy users. Heavy users, unsurprisingly, were mostly in the 18- to 34-year-old age group, and use at least six functions on their mobile device.

Nearly two-thirds of mobile users are light users who simply make phone calls and send texts.

The Government is seriously considering voting by text messaging in its list of e-democracy proposals to change public ballot voting.

Full tags

Phones, Mobile phones, SMS, BBC