In 2013 Electoral Registration Officers were issued with new instructions about how they should register voters – the annual canvass was postponed so that the new way of registering voters (individually and not by head of household) would be as accurate as possible.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/794/contents/made

and

The Electoral Registration (Disclosure of Electoral Registers) Regulations 2013

The latter included the following – and yet our Electoral Registration still managed to lose more than 6,000 voters from the electoral roll that year:

… “5. It is particularly important that a comprehensive canvass is conducted in 2013-14 in order to achieve as complete and accurate registers as possible ahead of the transition to IER. This will help to maximise the number of electors who can be ‘confirmed’ during the transition, which will in turn help to reduce the number of electors that EROs will need to follow up with and invite to register individually.

6. As always, EROs will need to ensure that they have robust plans in place for the annual canvass process and should also review their risk registers to ensure that any additional or different risks and related mitigating action have been identified and are reflected.”

…
9. Although the timing of the 2013 canvass has changed, the processes to be followed will be the same as in any other year. EROs are still legally required to take all steps that are necessary for the purposes of maintaining the electoral register, including:

• sending more than once to any address the form to be used for the canvass
• making on one or more occasions house-to-house enquiries
• making contact by such other means as the ERO thinks appropriate with persons who do not have an entry in the register
• inspecting any records held by any person which the ERO is permitted to inspect
• providing training to persons under their direction or control in connection with the carrying out of the duty

…15. Once decisions have been taken as to when and how the house-to-house enquiry part of their canvass will be carried out, EROs should establish how many canvassers will be needed and when, and put in place plans to ensure that sufficient staff can be recruited, trained and supervised to carry out house-to-house enquiries. EROs’ plans should also reflect how, when and on what basis canvassers will be paid.

16. EROs should bear in mind that existing or experienced canvassers may not be available for part or all of the revised canvass period or willing to work at the required times, and that they may therefore need to undertake additional recruitment exercises, targeting new or different groups. The timing of recruitment should be planned to take into account the likely increased demand for seasonal and temporary staff in other local businesses in the run-up to and during the festive period.

17. Any additional or different risks arising from carrying out house-to-house enquiries at a different time should be identified in the ERO’s risk register and appropriate mitigating action put in place. This might include, for example, risks associated with canvassing in bad weather or when there are limiteddaylight hours, and how these can be addressed through canvasser training and supervision.

…27. EROs should take steps to make local political parties and elected representatives aware of the changed register publication date at an early stage.

On-going registration work following publication of the register
28. The duty to maintain the register and undertake the steps set out in Section 9A of the Representation of the People Act 1983 (as amended) appliesthroughout the year and is not altered by the postponement of the 2013 canvass. Continuing registration work following the publication of the revised registers in early 2014 will enable EROs to ensure that they have carried out all of the necessary steps by the time of the scheduled 2014 polls, which means that the register used for the 2014 polls will be as up to date as possible, and will also help to maximise the number of electors who are successfully confirmed during the transition to IER, thus reducing the amount of follow-up work that EROs will be required to do to contact those who have not been confirmed and invite them to register.

After boasting to the Parliamentary Select Committee on voter engagement that his way of tracking down missing voters was far superior to the required door to door canvassing done everywhere else (by telephoning missing voters instead – always assuming you know their landline or mobile numbers) Mark Williams has now recruited a large team of canvassers to do the job.

Wonder what caused the change …..!

http://new.eastdevon.gov.uk/news/2014/10/home-visits-aim-to-boost-number-of-residents-registered-to-vote/

Electoral Ommission

A really hard-hitting report about the failure of the Electoral Commission to get to grips with administrative bungling, fraud and blatent “looking the other way” to avoid responsibility. This 60 page report makes frightening reading about a subject we already find worrying enough with a Chief Executive who reports to himself not being at all worried that he lost 6,000 plus voters at the European Elections and finding Parliamentary scrutiny about it an irritation.

Fortunately, he does not have to worry about local scrutiny as the Overview and Scrutiny committee majority party members agreed to do what he said and refuse to deal with the matter – on the casting vote of its majority party Chairman.

Here is its introduction:

“This study reviews progress seven years after the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s 2007 Report and poses five main questions:

How inaccurate is the electoral register? To what extent is administrative failure responsible for any inaccuracies that occur?

What is the extent of voting fraud in the UK?

Has the Electoral Commission implemented the main recommendation of the
Committee on Standards in Public Life, that the Electoral Commission should focus on administering elections rather than policymaking and on promoting participation?

Are the delays being considered by the Electoral Commission in implementing individual voter registration and in introducing the requirement for voter identification at polling stations justified and acceptable?

Are measures being taken by the Cabinet Office to improve the accuracy of the electoral registers for the May 2015 General Election adequate?

The four main conclusions of this report are:

The administration of elections in the UK remains dangerously inefficient and seriously open to fraud.

There remains within the various bodies responsible for electoral administration a culture of complacency and denial.

The Electoral Commission has taken too few meaningful steps to address the recommendation of the Committee on Standards in Public Life that it focus on its regulatory role.

There is an emerging danger of partisan divisions between the two main political parties about whether or not to tolerate this situation. Too often, a bogus dilemma has been cited between the aims of encouraging voting by members of socially disadvantaged groups and guarding against fraud.

Too little has changed since the Committee on Standards in Public Life published its report into the Electoral Commission in January 2007.4 The main change between 2007 and 2014 is that the headline statistics show that the problems of inaccuracy in the electoral registers, already serious in 1981 and worse in 2007, have continued to amplify.

Good electoral administration is a regulatory matter requiring determined administrative action. Yet the bodies responsible for such administration – local government authorities, the Cabinet Office (currently responsible for electoral matters at central government level), and the Electoral Commission – have too often failed to act. It is too easy to blame sociological factors and voter disengagement for what are administrative shortcomings.”

Source: http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/images/publications/electoral%20omission.pdf