The Election Law Channel is dedicated to coverage of UK election law, giving unrivalled detailed news of election law matters, explaining complex matters in plain English and setting out the practical relevance of technical legal provisions.
Two former Liberal Democrat councillors in Eastleigh (one deselected, the other left the party following the deselection) have been making allegations to the media that Chris Huhne overspent on his general election expenses.
However, the allegations are extremely threadbare – to be generous.
The claim is that the local party spent more on the elections than was declared in the limit. To someone who knows nothing about election law, that sounds a serious, credible allegation. But if you know something about election law…
For somewhere such as Eastleigh with local elections on the same day as the general election last year, campaign activities …
When elected, John Dixon and Aled Roberts were members of public bodies to which AMs cannot belong. They have now resigned, respectively, from the Care Council for Wales and the Valuation Tribunal for Wales and it had been hoped that their reinstatement would be a technicality. However, the Lib Dem motion to reinstate the two was withdrawn last night when Labour refused to support it.
In a vote this week the House of Lords decided to make it significantly easier for future Parliaments to change the rules for fixed-term Parliaments.
The legislation going through Parliament to remove the power of the Prime Minister to fix election dates to their own convenience cannot make them fixed in perpetuity as no Parliament can bind future Parliaments in that way. So the question is how difficult is it for a future Parliament to change the rules – and hence how rigidly fixed the terms of Parliaments really are.
The government’s proposals would have required future Parliaments to pass primary legislation …
The control of Bury Council came down to one seat. Recounts couldn’t separate the two candidates. So short straws were drawn to see who won and hence who got control of the council:
The Liberal Democrat candidate for Westerhope, Neil Hamilton, died this afternoon after spending the day campaigning.
Police were called to his house after no-one could contact him. Mr Hamilton, thought to be in his early 60s, was a junior cricket coach.
Under council rules, if a candidate dies during an election, and before all votes are cast, the election is null and void and a by-election must be held.
Our condolences to Mr Hamilton’s family, and to the local party in Newcastle.
You show your choice by putting a cross (X) in the ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ box on your ballot paper.
Put a cross in only one box or your vote will not be counted.
Obviously, this referendum is not being conducted under the Alternative Vote system, but I’ve heard some reports of people wanting to emphasise their awareness of AV by actually using it to vote today. Thinking a little self-reference won’t go amiss, some have suggested voting in order of preference, with a 1 for Yes and a 2 for No.
Don’t do it!
Papers bearing a vote for both answers will be rejected:
Allegations emerged recently of voters in Rochdale being asked to hand postal ballots for the local elections to party representatives to complete and submit to the Returning Officer. A decade ago, this might have made the national news, but now such stories are probably too familiar to make the headlines.
While electoral fraud is not rife in the UK, the scale of the problem is almost impossible to estimate. One thing is for sure – the Rochdale case does not represent an isolated local difficulty. Based on joint reporting by the Electoral Commission and the Association of Chief Police Officers …
A guide to the city mayoral election has been published without information about one of the leading candidates.
Tory Ross Grant is missing from the Your Vote Matters booklet, which has been sent to all 229,777 voters in the city.
The 11 people hoping to be elected mayor were invited to pay £250 to submit an address with details about themselves, their policies and why people should vote for them.
Councillor Grant did not provide any information and has been excluded …
He declined to tell the Leicester Mercury why he failed to submit anything for the booklet but it is
The Government has lost its final appeal against a human rights ruling requiring Britain to give prisoners the vote.
Prime Minister David Cameron – who said the thought of granting the vote to criminals made him physically ill – now has six months to produce “legislative proposals” ending the current blanket ban on inmates voting in national and European elections.
Scientific American reports on a recent Journal of Experimental Social Psychology article by Larry Sanna and his associates at the University of North Carolina:
Building on research showing the power of metaphors to shape our thinking, Sanna and his colleagues noted that height is often used as a metaphor for virtue: moral high ground, God on high, looking up to good people, etc. If people were primed to think about height, they wondered, might people be more virtuous?
In a series of four different studies, the authors found consistent support for their predictions. In the first study they found that twice
To coincide with the start of the delivery of its educational booklets, the Electoral Commission has also launched a TV advertising campaign to inform people about the referendum and elections being held in May. This is the first of two planned TV adverts:
A limit on the maximum number of people eligible to vote at a polling station has been imposed by the Electoral Commission under the powers given to its Chief Executive, Jenny Watson, to run the AV referendum in May.
Under the law for referendums, Jenny Watson is the Chief Counting Officer and thereby able to issue instructions as to how the vote should be conducted around the country. Because the referendum is being held on the same day as other elections, many of those instructions in effect also apply to the other elections as well.
Millions of pounds have been spent in total in the UK on testing various forms of electronic voting, in the hope that this might raise turnout in elections. The overall verdict across different technologies – such as voting by SMS or online – has been remarkably consistent: it’s expensive, not very reliable, of dubious security and, above all, has almost no impact on turnout levels.
It’s easy to see how the idea of using modern technology has caught the eye and budget of decision makers. But with the emphasis on the high-tech, boringly old-fashioned items such as paperwork have got much …
As part of Parliament’s deliberations over the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, this week the House of Lords debated the possibility of moving to weekend voting.
Weekend voting has been once briefly trialled (in Watford a decade ago). It was not a success then, but there are good reasons to try again given the details of how the trial was conducted – especially holding the weekend elections just after the usual national round of local elections, with the result that residents in Watford were seeing in all the national
The Electoral Commission has just published copies of the booklets it will be distributing to every household in the UK as part of its public information campaign for May’s AV referendum.
In addition to the England, Scotland and Wales booklets below, there are also versions for Northern Ireland and in Welsh. Both of these, along with details of the research the Electoral Commission carried out in putting the booklets together, are on the Electoral Commission website.
We reported back in December how UNISON was facing a fine for breaking election law. The trade union had completely failed to submit details of their general election expenditure within the legal deadline.
UNISON has now submitted its spending declaration several months late, but in a quirky twist of the law has not yet been fined by the Electoral Commission – because its return is still missing the signature of the ‘responsible person’. Assuming UNISON manage to get the piece of paper finally signed before 5 May (six months after the 5 November deadline), the fine required by law is …
Any voter can apply for a postal (or proxy) vote in the usual way for May’s elections, including the AV referendum. However, people who have previously applied for a permanent postal vote may also be entitled to one without having to re-apply.
There are three categories:
1. People who have a permanent postal vote for a UK Parliamentary election – they will get a referendum postal vote too.
2. People who have a permanent postal vote for a local election and are on the register for somewhere that is holding an election in May – they will get a referendum postal vote too …
The Co-operative Party, which runs joint candidates with the Labour Party, reports:
Following last year’s ruling by the Electoral Commission that precluded joint candidates from using an emblem – which was made without warning and after the nominations deadline – we have spent a long year of negotiation with the EC and the Cabinet Office to secure the necessary change to legislation.
A statutory instruments laid before Parliament last week updates election rules to tackle this. The Local Elections (Principal Areas) (England and Wales) (Amendment) Rules 2011 adds the following to the rules:
If a candidate who is the subject of an authorisation by
The London Assembly has called for changes in the law ahead of the 2012 London Mayor and Assembly elections, following a review of the lessons from last year’s council and general election in London.
Two issues are likely to meet widespread support, namely the problems of voters being intimidated and people being left still queuing when polls closed at 10pm. Both issues were significant problems in specific parts of London last year.
The report says:
The difficulties identified include most significantly a number of instances where there were queues at polling stations and people were unable to vote. Our report highlights the confusion in applying the electoral law to enfranchise the voter that led in some instances to a breach of election rules. We therefore recommend a change in electoral law to prevent a repeat of the disenfranchisement of so many people in London and across England. Without a change in the law there will need to be new guidance to Returning Officers as to how they can better prepare to deal with any late surge of voters.
A further significant issue addressed in this report is how to stop the intimidation of voters that is taking place at some polling stations. Clear advice to polling staff and consistency in how that advice is acted upon is necessary to tackle this unacceptable behaviour.
More controversial is likely to be the report’s call for a repeal of the legislation introduced last year to ensure overnight counting of votes for the general election.
The bigger issue that was not covered by this review, by virtue of its rermit, is the mistakes that were made in counting votes at the last London elections. As I wrote at the time:
In the immediate aftermath of this May’s London Mayor and Assembly elections, it became clear that some mistakes had been made during the count. Some Mayor votes in Merton and Wandsworth were omitted from the count, and in addition the checking process was flawed as votes were reported from more wards than exist in London.
Both the Open Rights Group and the Electoral Commission identified further problems, with my summary of the Electoral Commission’s verdict still valid:
In other words, “the numbers don’t add up; we don’t know why; it might be bad, it might not be; but there wasn’t a proper audit trail so we’re all left clueless.”
Counting the votes correctly and having a proper system for checking that the results are right is by far the most important change that needs to happen for the 2012 elections.
The Electoral Commission has published its review of expenditure at the 2010 general election, finding that national spending by parties dropped sharply from its 2005 peak, though it was still above 2001 levels.
Total reported national campaign expenditure by all political parties (i.e. excluding expenditure recorded on candidate expense returns and excluding expenditure that does not count towards any limits*) across the United Kingdom was £31.5 million, just under £11 million lower than in 2005 but nearly £5 million higher than 2001. Nearly all of the fall is accounted for by a £9.9 million drop in the amount spent by Labour.
Non-submission of election expense records by Parliamentary candidates continues to be a problem, with as late as January 2011 3% of candidates still not having submitted the returns the law required to be submitted last summer. No legal action has been taken against any candidate for these failures, although none was a candidate who finished first or second in a constituency. The Electoral Commission says it is “currently considering” how to tackle this issue in future, and points out that at the moment the only action that can be taken is referral to the police for a criminal investigation which, in its view, “can be a disproportionate reaction to administrative non-compliance”.
Total expenditure for the 2010 election by the main parties was:
Conservative: £16.7m (national), £9.8m (total by candidates) for a grand total of £26.5 million
Labour: £8.0m (national), £6.5m (total by candidates) for a grand total of £14.5 million
Liberal Democrats: £4.8m (national), £5.0m (total by candidates) for a grand total of £9.8 million
The Liberal Democrats were the only party to have a greater local than national spend, although the two numbers are not fully comparable given the different time periods and definitions for them.
* This exemption includes some surprising items, such as staff salaries, and was the cause of one of my favourite exchanges with the Electoral Commission during my time working for the party. It went something like this: ‘Just want to check I’ve understood both the law and your guidance correctly. We have a member of staff here whose job title is General Election Planning Manager. However, their salary does not count towards the General Election expense limit, is that right?’ ‘Yes.’
The BBC reports from Southampton Magistrates Court:
A Liberal Democrat MP has described allegations he was a paedophile as “absolutely untrue and offensive”.
Mike Hancock told Southampton Magistrates’ Court he was “horrified” by a leaflet published during last year’s general election.
The court heard Les Cummings, who was standing against the MP, had written: “Mike Hancock is a paedophile”.
He denies making a false statement with the purpose of affecting the result of the election in Portsmouth South.
Mr Cummings, 66, from Portsmouth, is accused of publishing the leaflet last April, while he was standing against Mr Hancock as an independent for the Justice
The Electoral Commission has published the results of its third survey of reports of electoral fraud and other malpractice, this time covering the 2010 general and local elections and for the first time including data for every police force. Commenting on the findings, Electoral Commission Chair, Jenny Watson, said:
There was some high profile reporting of alleged electoral malpractice around the elections and perceptions of fraud continue to be a concern to voters. Yet these figures do not support the more pessimistic perceptions: there’s no evidence of widespread attempts to commit electoral fraud, or of election results being called into question. It is important the public have accurate information on electoral malpractice and I would like to thank police forces across the UK for proving the data to make this analysis possible.
It’s taken a lot of work to get to this point and no one should be complacent about the risks at the elections and referendums this year. We continue to work closely with the police, elections staff, the Royal Mail and political parties to ensure the threat of electoral malpractice is reduced, and we’ve seen examples of excellent joint working between police forces and electoral administration teams.
The UK Government’s commitment to introducing individual electoral registration will be another important measure to help tighten up the democratic process. The next step is for them to consider introducing the requirement for ID at polling stations in Great Britain, as is already the case in Northern Ireland. We’ve raised this in our report after the UK Parliamentary General Election and asked Government to lead the debate.
The reference to showing ID at polling stations reflects increasing concerns over impersonation at polling stations in the last few years, partly as a result of many of the easy ways of carrying out postal vote fraud having been curtailed by changes in the rules.
Overall the Electoral Commission found that 232 cases of alleged malpractice were reported to the police as a result of the May 2010 elections, with the police deciding in 137 cases that no further action was required.
So far two cases have been to court (one conviction and a fine of £200, one acquittal), two cases saw police cautions issued and 23 were concluded with the police giving informal advice short of a caution. The other 68 cases are either still with the police or awaiting decisions by prosecutors.
These apparently comforting figures have been attacked by some as showing undue complacency by the Electoral Commission:
Critics have attacked the report as a whitewash, stating that the lack of successful prosecutions simply highlights how difficult it can be to investigate voting irregularities.
Rob Hoveman, an election agent for the Respect Party, which claimed postal-ballot rigging was commonplace in East London, said: “The fact is that it remains very easy for votes to be cast through personation, for false voters to be registered and, above all, for undue, inappropriate and illegal pressure to be applied in the casting of postal votes through the postal vote on demand system.”
He added: “Just because a crime hasn’t been prosecuted doesn’t mean a crime didn’t take place.” (The Independent)
In addition to these concerns over whether particular problem areas exist which need more effective action, the details of some cases which were not pursued suggest that there is more going wrong than the number of successful prosecutions indicates. The Electoral Commission’s report gives this example from Peterborough:
Initially, Peterborough City Council followed robust sifting procedures of several hundred applications to register to vote and to vote by post. Following this, 150 applications were identified as high risk and referred to Cambridgeshire Constabulary for further investigation.
A man was identified to have delivered the applications to the City Council. He was subsequently arrested and his computer equipment was seized from his home address.
He denied any knowledge or involvement concerning fraudulent voting applications and summarised his involvement as being a delivery driver for the Conservative Association. He freely admitted handling the applications and denied any knowledge as to how they were constructed. Low level enquiries were completed with the Conservative Association to identify the existence of reliable third party evidence that might identify those involved but none was found.
The defendant was bailed to allow the examination of his computers to identify the existence of source documents (tenancy agreements in particular) which may have been used in support of false applications and to complete an identification procedure involving potential witnesses. Both these lines of enquiry were negative and no further action was taken against him.
A joint decision was made by Peterborough City Council and Cambridgeshire Constabulary that, as no person appeared to have been denied their right to vote in the 6 May elections nor any suspect identified, no further investigation would be carried out. Furthermore, no further referrals, intelligence or complaints, were received by Peterborough City Council or Cambridgeshire Constabulary in relation to allegations of electoral fraud.
Peers who are currently trying to block a referendum on the use of the Alternative Vote in General Elections are about to use AV to replace one of their own members in the House of Lords.
Over on the Open Rights Group blog, Jason Kitcat has recounted the recent meeting hosted by the Cabinet Office about the government’s plans to improve data sharing across the public sector in order to improve electoral registration, particularly as we shift to individual registration (the benefits of which I’ve blogged about here).
These plans could range from the helpful (such as giving people the option when, say, telling the TV Licensing Authority that they have moved also to have the information sent to update their electoral register entry) through to the very different (such as linking up tax records …
Today we are announcing that we are repealing an old-fashioned outdated law which means that MPs at the moment are disqualified from being MPs if they have a mental health problem which goes on for more than six months.
We are scrapping that – it is a relatively symbolic thing because it has never been used – but
Increasing anger from crossbench peers at Labour’s filibustering in the Lords looks to be preparing the way for either Labour backing down or (for the Lords) highly unusual procedural decisions to end the filibustering. As I put it earlier in the week, if Labour loses the support of the crossbenchers, it will not only lose the struggle over this bill but weaken its ability to successfully oppose other legislation in the future.
At the same time, the government has been showing its willingness to listen to scrutiny rather than filibustering by agreeing to two changes to the ways in which …
The No campaign for the March 3rd referendum on increasing the powers of the Welsh Assembly, True Wales, has decided not to seek official designation, thereby depriving both the Yes and No sides of public funding.
Referendum legislation makes funding available to both sides in a referendum if there is an officially designated campaign on both sides. As a result of the No campaign declining to seek official designation, this funding – £70,000 in cash, a free mailshot and TV broadcasts – along with higher spending limits, will not be available to either side.
A press release from the Local Government Boundary Commission for Wales explains,
The Minister for Social Justice and Local Government has announced that he will not be making any changes to the present electoral arrangements for any local authorities in Wales until after the 2012 local government elections.
However, despite this the Local Government Boundary Commission for Wales is pressing ahead with some of its boundary reviews, with draft proposals for County Borough of Caerphilly published on Monday and feedback requested by 22 March. The reviews for Wrexham are also continuing, but those for Swansea are on hold after their proposals …
David Allen A clear, credible, principled strategy from the Yorkists! Makes a welcome change.
Sadly, followed by twenty below-the-line posts, providing nearly twenty ve...
Simon McGrath so we get a permanant increase in costs for these subsidies based on ( alleged ) windfall profits. Its another big increase in spending -how is it to be paid ...
Peter Davies @Kira CollinsThat assumes we want to help people more with their energy bills than with all the other bills they may be struggling with. There is no reason why ...
Rob Heale Agree that we need to focus on strategy and have clearer messaging:-
1. We MUST prioritise membership recruitment in all we do, including PPB's, most leaflets...
Kira Collins Disappointed. The most obvious means of reducing energy bills is to remove VAT. Relatively straightforward to do and does not adversely impact on the attractive...
More controversial is likely to be the report’s call for a repeal of the legislation introduced last year to ensure overnight counting of votes for the general election.
Non-submission of election expense records by Parliamentary candidates continues to be a problem, with as late as January 2011 3% of candidates still not having submitted the returns the law required to be submitted last summer. No legal action has been taken against any candidate for these failures, although none was a candidate who finished first or second in a constituency. The Electoral Commission says it is “currently considering” how to tackle this issue in future, and points out that at the moment the only action that can be taken is referral to the police for a criminal investigation which, in its view, “can be a disproportionate reaction to administrative non-compliance”.
The reference to showing ID at polling stations reflects increasing concerns over impersonation at polling stations in the last few years, partly as a result of many of the easy ways of carrying out postal vote fraud having been curtailed by changes in the rules.
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David Allen 
Simon McGrath 
Peter Davies 
Rob Heale 
Kira Collins 