Tag Archives: electoral registration

Government responds to consultation over individual electoral registration

By Mark Pack | Published 10th February 2012 - 8:55 am

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.

Many people (including myself) criticised the plans to weaken the legal requirement to register, either because they oppose voluntary registration in principle or because even if they are warm to voluntary registration in theory they think that switching to individual registration and voluntary registration at the same time is a recipe for disaster. One should be done, sorted and settled in before the other is addressed.

As has been heavily trailed, the government is …

Posted in Election law | 4 Comments

Clegg signals new approach to individual voter registration in evidence to Parliamentary committee

By Nick Thornsby | Published 9th February 2012 - 11:28 am

Last Wednesday saw Nick Clegg return for his annual appearance before the House of Lords Constitution Committee. As one might expect, a whole range of political reform and constitutional issues were covered in the 90 minute evidence session.

One interesting answer by the Deputy Prime Minister which caught my attention was on the topic of individual voter registration. 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:

The short answer is ‘yes’….We

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Posted in Election law, News | Also tagged chris rennard, constitutional reform, nick clegg, political and constitutional reform committee | 7 Comments

LibLink: Chris Rennard – Integrity in ensuring that people can vote

By Nick Thornsby | Published 19th January 2012 - 6:28 pm

Over on epolitix, Lord (Chris) Rennard has a piece calling for changes to the electoral registration system to place the burden on individuals rather than households following the news that at least 6 million people are unregistered:

All parties and the Electoral Commission are agreed in principle that the electoral registration system should change to put the responsibility on individuals rather than households.

But the Commission report shows that our existing system is not as good as we thought and there are clearly dangers in making any changes. The biggest dangers to the integrity of the process would be to suggest that

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged chris rennard, electoral commission | 3 Comments

Electoral registration: the group that gets overlooked

By Mark Pack | Published 15th December 2011 - 3:55 pm

People who live in private rented accommodation rarely catch the attention of politicians or political journalists. It’s odd, because so many people working for MPs or media outlets, particularly in London, spend a good number of years in shared private rented accommodation and normally the problem is that politicians place too much attention on people they are immediately familiar with rather than too little.

The neglect of the private renter is seen most often when the housing market is discussed, where it is frequently not only taken as a given that home ownership is what it is all about but also …

Posted in Election law | Also tagged electoral commission | 6 Comments

How many people are prosecuted for failing to fill in electoral registration forms?

By Mark Pack | Published 25th November 2011 - 2:15 pm

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? Part of the answer to that has come in a recent Parliamentary Question, giving details of how many prosecutions have been commenced under the existing system:

2008 183
2009 67
2010 144
These data are collected by voluntary survey of electoral registration officers (EROs). The Electoral Commission does not have the power to collect this information and it is therefore not compulsory for EROs to complete

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Posted in Election law | 2 Comments

DPMQs: Clegg shows his passion on a range of issues

By Paul Walter | Published 17th November 2011 - 10:10 am

As usual, questions to the Deputy Prime Minister this week covered a large variety of subjects. Nick Clegg was on passionate form on several issues.

Harriet Harman asked if he would “admit that he urgently needs to take further action to help the young unemployed?”. Refreshingly, Nick Clegg did admit this, adding:

…it would be a real dereliction of duty if we did not do more to try to make sure that young people are given a real pathway into training, further and higher education or the labour market. As the right hon. and learned Lady will know, youth unemployment has increased

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Posted in Parliament | Also tagged child detention, nick cle, youth unemployment | 26 Comments

Mark Williams MP writes: We can achieve an accurate and complete electoral register

By Mark Williams MP | Published 21st October 2011 - 12:53 pm

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 passed by Labour in 2009. They accepted then that the present system of household registration is inadequate and inaccurate. It …

Posted in Election law, Op-eds | Also tagged electoral commission, nick clegg | 2 Comments

LibLink: Mark Pack – Unsolved problems of individual electoral registration

By NewsHound | Published 20th October 2011 - 10:25 am

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:

So far, the planned move from household to individual electoral registration in Great Britain (catching up with the changes made in Northern Ireland several years ago) has generated rather more political heat than light. But after the announcement from Nick Clegg at the last Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions that he is minded to part of the government’s plans, what is the outlook for the proposal?

Mark goes on to outline the three main issues, as you …

Posted in Election law, LibLink | Also tagged mark pack | Leave a comment

Sadiq Khan, master of political caricature, I salute you

By Mark Pack | Published 14th October 2011 - 7:59 am

Listening to Deputy Prime Minister’s Question Time and also the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee’s hearing this week, I was tempted to blog about how in a throwback to the worst of New Labour, many Labour MPs seemed to be confusing something being a “civic duty” with it being a legal requirement. After all, it doesn’t say much for your idea of “civic duty” if you think it is synonymous with “legal requirement”.

I didn’t have time to blog about this… but then today Sadiq Khan writes for The Guardian:

The compulsory nature of our interaction with registration officers may seem

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Posted in News | Also tagged sadiq khan | 28 Comments

DPMQs: Something has happened here

By Paul Walter | Published 13th October 2011 - 9:53 am

Whisper it. A quiet revolution has happened. Keep this quiet, please!

Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions used to be akin to Bear Baiting (with apologies to bears and ursine mammal lovers everywhere). Nick Clegg would stand up and have all sorts of sticks prodded into his midriff by Labour members, while their sistren and breathren used to shout and jeer. The poor ~~bear~~ Clegg used to get all red in the face and start shouting back at them, before escaping to nurse his wounds.

Something has changed.

This week, apart from the odd bit of rowdiness during a question on the consultation concerning …

Posted in News, Parliament | Also tagged Dr Liam Fox, nick clegg | 10 Comments

Michael Meacher has me confused over individual electoral registration

By Mark Pack | Published 10th October 2011 - 7:50 am

Dear Michael Meacher,

I’m puzzled by your views on individual electoral registration. You call it “insidious”, “underhand”, “utterly anti-democratic” and “Tory”. Yet the legislation for it was introduced by a Labour government, Labour’s 2010 manifesto boasted about Labour’s achievement in passing that legislation and – as far as I can see – you didn’t rebel once over the legislation when it was going through Parliament.

Of course there are issues about whether or not electoral registration should be voluntary and whether the annual canvass should be kept in 2014, but those are not the target of your written ire. Your …

Posted in News | Also tagged michael meacher | 13 Comments

What’s the point of switching to individual electoral registration?

By Mark Pack | Published 9th October 2011 - 5:50 pm

As some background to the current debates, I thought it useful to revive and update an old post of my on the subject as there has been relatively little coverage of the reasons why it has been supported by all parties (including Labour, who even talked up their achievement in introducing the first legislation for individual electoral registration before 2010, in their last general election manifesto).

The current electoral registration system is based on one registration form being delivered to each household, with the head of the household completing the form on behalf of everyone there and sending it back (“household …

Posted in Election law | Also tagged electoral commission | 9 Comments

Individual electoral registration: consultation response

By Mark Pack | Published 5th October 2011 - 7:50 am

Here’s the response I’ve sent to the Electoral Registration Transformation Programme () in response to the consultation on the draft legislation for individual electoral registration, which closes on 14 October. For the background on the benefits of individual electoral registration, see What’s the point of switching to individual electoral registration?

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the draft legislation which has been published to implement individual electoral registration in Great Britain. The publication of a full draft for public consultation is a very welcome improvement on the way …

Posted in Election law | Also tagged electoral commission, jury service, michael wills | 16 Comments

Service voter registration rises again

By Mark Pack | Published 15th September 2011 - 3:54 pm

In a written statement to the House of Commons this week, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence Andrew Robathan reported on the latest survey of electoral registration levels amongst members of the armed forces:

It indicates that 75% of service personnel are registered to vote, up from 69% in 2009 and 60% in 2005. This represents the highest level of service registration since I first raised the issue back in 2005. Of those registered in 2010, the majority (77%) chose to register as ordinary rather than service voters. The level of voters registered as overseas voters has remained at 1%.

Posted in Election law | Also tagged andrew robathan | Leave a comment

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