Sensible news from the government yesterday with talk of modification to its plans for individual electoral registration in the light of comments made during its consultation.
Asked by Liberal Democrat peer Lord (Chris) Rennard whether there would be changes to the government approach as set out in the earlier White Paper when we see legislation on the issue soon, Clegg had the following to say…
A new academic study of 99 people suggests the choice of building for a polling station can have an impact on people’s political outlooks.
The Electoral Commission’s Peter Wardle has highlighted the inconsistent and potentially confusing rules for election addresses for Police Commissioner and City Mayor candidates.
Many of the differences between American and British election campaigns are not the result of American campaigners having good ideas the British should copy, but rather are the result of four key legal differences between the two countries.
Whether or not someone lives in private rented property is one of the most important factors in predicting whether or not they will be on the electoral register, new research by the Electoral Commission has found.
The Fixed-term Parliaments Act of 2011 is now in force and the sorts of calculations that were relevant during previous political excitements are no longer relevant. A Prime Minister can no longer simply call an early general election because they want to.
The Electoral Commission has a new consultation paper out, returning to an old issue: when should election counts be held?
In amongst the debate over individual electoral registration, one question has been whether it should remain a legal obligation to complete registration forms sent out by the local council. But how meaningful is the current legal obligation?
One aspect of electoral registration, and the potential problems with making registration voluntary, is the knock-on effect on credit and social mobility. That was the aspect which Liberal Democrat peer (Lord) Chris Rennard took up during a debate in the Lords this week.
The Electoral Commission has called on Parliament to modify the Localism Bill to delay the proposed start date for local referendums on Council Tax levels, neighbourhood development plans and local authority structures (e.g. elected Mayors) from Spring 2012 to Spring 2013.
The Electoral Commission has promised to look at the question of when elections should be counted.
Last week, the Electoral Commission published its report into the administration of the May’s AV referendum. Despite the high political temperatures during the campaign, the administration got little criticism at the time and so the report rightly reflects that. However, amongst the details are some important pointers to issues that are likely to come up at future elections.
The Government’s planned introduction of Individual Voter Registration was to be the subject of a special ‘opposition day’ debate in the House of Commons this week. Labour MPs are getting extremely excitable about the changes, shrouding what are really partisan fears in a cloak of concern about democracy. In the event, their debate was cancelled because of other urgent business, but the issue certainly isn’t going away.
For all of their recent hollering, legislation to introduce Individual Electoral Registration was actually …
Over on the Total Politics blog, Lib Dem Voice’s Mark Pack has been summarising the state of play with plans to move to individual electoral registration.
