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.
Vote of confidence? Lessons Learned from the 2010 General and Local Elections
5 Comments
The stuff about intimidation is at least as important.
I would propose a law to say that all the counting in parliamentary elections and similar contests should be done the next day. Overnight counts are ridiculous.
Tony Greaves
@Tony Greaves
Overnight counts are ridiculous.
Based on my experience in May 2010, attending the location for the count for two constituencies, plus the verification for a further 0.4 constituency and the count for eighteen 3-member wards, I wholeheartedly agree!
They got the constituencies decided in the small hours and then started on the wards, but had to suspend that in the early morning due to exhaustion of all concerned, resumed on Friday, and broke late in the day for the weekend (when the control of the council was not in doubt). The smaller scale re-counts were completed elsewhere during the working day on Monday.
I would go further, and say that elections for different bodies, should NOT be held on the same day. I would propose a minimum 28-day gap. I know that the present arrangements get higher turn-out, save disruption and some money, but they do muddy the distinctions between the different issues at different tiers of government.
Or perhaps it’s time to explore vote counting technology?
Daniel: Counting machines were used in the 2008 London elections, so I think the lesson from this is about the weakness of vote counting technology?
Oh right?
I couldn’t see a mention in them in the report so maybe they didn’t cause problems, but it sounds like they didn’t manage to compensate for the lack of qualified counting staff either.