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 the form.
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2 Comments
Mark, you are well aware that the number of prosecutions is not the point. In a generally law-abiding community the vast majority of people comply with the law – albeit often grumbling about it.
After many years of pleading with people to wear seat belts in cars – with limited success – the situation was transformed overnight when it became a legal obligation. It does not take a series of miserable wretches being dragged before the courts to maintain that – “It’s the law so I suppose we’d better do it, dammit.”
It would be a massively retrograde step to remove compulsory voter registration.
Denis: I think these figures can be interpreted in different ways (glass half full/empty) but I thought it worth sharing them as I’ve been struck how little evidence has been cited in a lot of the comments made about electoral registration and the proposed changes. E.g. it’s not uncommon to hear people say the current legal obligation is irrelevant because ‘no-one’ ever gets prosecuted, but without either them or people who disagree quoting evidence to back up their contentions.