When an East Devon constituent asked the Electoral Commission what steps our Electoral Return Officer (CEO Mark Williams) had taken to keep the Electoral Roll up to date, they replied:

In 2011 the ERO reported in his self-assessment return that although he considered he was ‘meeting’/’performing ‘above’ standard 3, he also stated that he was unable to carry out a full personal canvass of non-responders. As a result we decided to amend the assessment for East Devon to ‘not meeting the performance standard’. We do not believe that either personal canvassing or telephone canvassing took place for the 2011 canvass.

The data return submitted at the end of the 2012 canvass again revealed that no house to house enquiries were conducted. We do not believe that telephone canvassing took place in 2012.

In 2013 telephone canvassing was utilised as part of the canvass, but no personal visits to non-responding properties took place, despite an indication from the ERO prior to the canvass that this was planned.

Source: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/electoral_registration_is_teleph

So, for the years 2011 and 2012, no canvassing was done at all and in 2013 telephone canvassing WAS done, but not house-to-house canvassing.

Source: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/elvectoral_registration_is_teleph

According to this website:

Click to access Part-C-Annual-canvass-final-August-2009.pdf

“1.6 If the Electoral Registration Officer fails to take steps where necessary, they will be in breach of their official duty, which on summary conviction can result in a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.”

[currently the level 5 fine is £5,000]

and according to this website:

Click to access Analysis-of-electoral-registration-data-for-Great-Britain-2013.pdf

“EROs will also continue to have a duty under Section 9A of the Representation of the People Act 1983 to take all steps that are necessary – including making house-to-house enquiries – for the purposes of maintaining the register.”

[Note the word “including”]

Also, according to this website:

Click to access DIRECTION-UNDER-THE-REPRESENTATION-OF-THE-PEOPLE-ACT-1983.pdf

(1) 20Section 9A of the Representation of the People Act 1983 (registration officers have :

a duty to take necessary steps) is amended as follows.

Voter Registration

(2) Before paragraph (a) in subsection (2), there is inserted:

(a) taking active steps to increase the number of people on the electoral register that belong to a specified group;

(b) leading or arranging for one voter engagement session per academic year at each school or further education college within his area of responsibility.

We presume that all schools and further education colleges in East Devon have had their voter engagement visits each year …..

But are there any statutory bodies in our county tasked to examine if there is a possible offence under Section 9A of the Representation of the People Act.

According to the Electoral Commission, no police force has ever prosecuted when it is believed that a Section 9A crime has been committed.

Where is the buck and where, if anywhere, does it stop? Indeed, is anyone even looking for it and would they recognise it if they saw it?