“Labour MP Wayne David revealed in Parliament this week that the police are “formally considering” investigating the Conservative Party’s 2017 election campaign for illegal activities following a Channel 4 investigation:
Mr David said the Electoral Commission had written to him confirming the police were “formally considering the allegations”.
An undercover investigation by C4 News, broadcast last month, claimed call centre workers may have been carrying out paid canvassing, banned under electoral law, as they promoted key Conservative messages to undecided voters in the weeks before the election. [BBC]
Channel 4 first aired the results of its investigations in June, which included an undercover reporter working at the call centre in question:
The Conservative Party contracted a secretive call centre during the election campaign which may have broken data protection and election laws, a Channel 4 News investigation has found…
These allegations include:
Paid canvassing on behalf of Conservative election candidates – banned under election law.
Political cold calling to prohibited [i.e. TPS registered] numbers
Misleading calls claiming to be from an ‘independent market research company’ which does not apparently exist.
Investigations into the Conservative Party’s 2015 general election campaign found repeated law-breaking, resulting in a record-breaking fine. In addition, a Conservative MP and two senior officials are currently being prosecuted for allegedly breaking the law.”
Why shouldn’t our council’s Scrutiny Committee check in its Electoral and Returning Officer’s procedures – even if the Monitoring Officer doesn’t like the idea because it MIGHT be considered political (by him)? A clean bill of health would reassure voters surely?
“The list of Brexit campaigners done for breaking the rules is getting lengthy.
Following the record £12,000 fine for breaches of spending rules, the pair of £1,000 fines for other offences, the company fined £50,000 for illegal text messages and the 11 anti-EU campaign groups struck off for breaking referendum rules, there’s now another £1,500 fine on a different Brexit campaigner:
The Electoral Commission has fined Mr Henry Meakin, a registered campaigner in the EU referendum, £1,500 for failing to submit his spending return on time. It is an offence not to deliver a spending return by the due date.
Though Mr Meakin reported spending of £37,000 in the campaign, the return was received more than 5 months late.”
“The Conservative party allegedly operated a secret call centre during the election campaign that may have broken data protection and election laws, according to an investigation by Channel 4 News.
An undercover investigation by the programme has found that the party used a market research firm to make thousands of cold calls to voters in marginal seats in the weeks before the election.
Call centre employees working on behalf of the party used a script that appeared to canvass for support rather conduct market research. On the day of the election, call centre employees contacted voters to promote individual candidates, which may be a breach of electoral law, the investigation claimed.
At the start of the election campaign, the information commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, wrote to all the major political parties reminding them of the law around telephone calls and data protection. She said that calling voters to promote a political party was “direct marketing” and was regulated by law.
The government also announced during the campaign that it wanted to tighten up the laws on nuisance calls and a bill on the issue was included in the Queen’s speech.
The Channel 4 News investigation, which ran over several weeks, found that a team employed by the Conservatives rang voters from a call centre in Neath, south Wales.
Operating from a script, the staff carried out calls for “market research” and “polling”. Identifying likely Tory voters in marginal seats could be important for the get-out-the-vote operation on election day, and also enable a political party to better direct its canvassing operation.
On election day, undecided voters were told that “the election result in your marginal constituency is going to be very close between Theresa May’s Conservatives and Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party”.
They were then asked:
“So does knowing that you live in a marginal constituency that will determine who is prime minister for the Brexit negotiations, does that make you a lot more likely to vote for Theresa May’s Conservative candidate or a little more likely to vote for Theresa May’s Conservative candidate, or are you still unsure, or does it not make a difference?”
At an earlier stage of the campaign, the call centre staff said they were calling from a company called Axe Research, which does not appear to exist. Under the Data Protection Act, callers must disclose who they are and how the data will be used.
Asked what Axe Research was, one supervisor told Channel 4 News: “It’s just the name we do these surveys under, basically. I did a Google search, nothing comes up. But as far as anyone’s concerned, yeah, we’re a legit independent market research company.”
A week before the election, the same call centre staff started saying they were calling on behalf of Theresa May’s Conservatives.
The Conservative party said the call centre was conducting market research on its behalf, and was not canvassing for votes. The call centre confirmed it was employed by the party, but denied canvassing on its behalf.
A Conservative spokesman said: “Political parties of all colours pay for market research and direct marketing calls. All the scripts supplied by the party for these calls are compliant with data protection and information law.”
Evidence obtained by Channel 4 News suggests that on the day of the election, staff called voters in 10 marginal seats, including Bridgend, Gower, Clwyd South and Wrexham.
According to the Representation of the People Act, it is illegal to employ someone “for payment or promise of payment as a canvasser for the purpose of promoting or procuring a candidate’s election”. …”
“Calls have been made for East Devon District Council’s returning officer to resign from his post after a total of 9,000 postal votes were sent out without the correct security mark.
The Acting Returning Officer for the East Devon Constituency, Mark Williams, issued a statement earlier this week to reassure postal voters who have not yet returned their postal votes after the postal votes after packs that were issued on May 25 contained voting slips that did not have an official security mark visible on the front of the ballot paper.
A total of 9,000 postal voters were affected by the mistake, which has been put down to ‘human error’ and people are being reassured that little damage has been done.
But the chairman of the East Devon Alliance has said they are appalled that Mark Williams is even in his post to be able to commit this unforgivable mistake after the ‘disaster’ of the 2015 elections, in which Parliamentary, District and Town council elections were all held on the same day.
The Electoral Commission have been informed of the postal voting error.
A statement issued by Mr Williams said: “It has come to my attention that the postal vote packs we issued on 25th May contained voting slips that did not have an official security mark visible on the front of the ballot paper. This has affected a total of 9,000 postal voters.
“I want to reassure those postal voters affected that if they have not yet returned their postal votes they should still do so. We have taken all the necessary steps to ensure the postal votes are valid and will be counted. I apologise for the error but want to reassure postal voters that they should still complete their postal voting statements and return their postal voting envelopes back to me for validating as part of the normal postal voting process.
“To be valid, a postal vote has to be accompanied by a valid postal voting statement containing the voters date of birth and signature. After these are checked, the envelope containing the postal voting slip is opened and the slip is put into a sealed ballot box where it is kept safe until the formal count. My postal vote opening teams will ensure that all validly completed postal votes are double checked so that they will go forward to the count along with all the other votes that will be cast on polling day itself.”
But the ‘cock-up’ has left Paul Arnott, chairman of the East Devon Alliance, furious, and said that he would have more confidence in a village raffle than in Mr Williams running the forthcoming election.
Mr Arnott said: “The East Devon Alliance is appalled that Mark Williams is even in his post to be able to commit this unforgivable mistake. In 2015, after the debacle of the elections for town, district and Parliament, we wrote a measured report, in which our concerns included his prematurely calling results at his chaotic count for district elections with no reference to candidates or agents even when majorities were easily within the need for a recount.
“As a result we are not confident that two current serving councillors were duly elected. He had no control over who was at the count itself, and we know about the 2015 disaster with the postal vote. All our concerns in 2015 were mirrored by a report from the Electoral Commission.
“As a result, I was successful this year in demanding that the County Solicitor’s office and the Electoral Commission observed the County election last month. Under this level of scrutiny the conduct of the 2017 county election was unrecognisable from the disgrace of 2015.
“Now we are witnessing the final tragedy for democracy in East Devon because Mr Williams remains in position to make what must be his final mistake.
“How is the electorate meant to trust that he forgot to check before sending out no fewer than 9,000 postal votes that they did not bear any proper markings? It’s his job to check them and to have a commissioning relationship with the printers.
“How did these ballot papers, which frankly any of us could have run off from a home printer, ever get to be created? This must be the last election he ever runs and we will be issuing a report on this and take it to the highest level. The dog has eaten his homework for the last time.
“Meanwhile the only honourable act for Mr Williams himself is to resign from all future electoral activities, including voter registration, his laxity in which was condemned by a committee in Parliament. I never thought I would live to be a 55-year-old citizen of one of the most beautiful parts of the world and be unable to assure my children that they are able to trust the electoral processes here anymore than in some underfunded and unfortunate part of the developing world.”
A spokesman for East Devon District Council said that the mistake was ‘simply the result of human error for which we apologise’.
They added: “A total of 9,000 postal votes were involved but as we have outlined in our statement the issue has been remedied. We want to reassure those postal voters affected that if they have not yet returned their postal votes they should still do so as we have taken all the necessary steps to ensure the postal votes are valid and will be counted.”
A spokesman for the Electoral Commission said: “The Electoral Commission is aware of the issue surrounding postal ballot papers in East Devon which were issued without an official mark. We were contacted by the Acting Returning Officer and provided advice, and steps have been taken to ensure that these ballot papers will still be counted and nobody will be disenfranchised in the UK Parliamentary General Election.”
Following the 2015 elections, the East Devon Alliance raised concerns with Mark Williams about some aspects of the election that required immediate corrective action as part of their response to the East Devon District Council request for comments on the 2015 elections.
THE FULL RESPONSE THEY PROVIDED WAS
Comment 1 about issues during voting: Mark Williams (as the District RO) would not take responsibility for ensuring that EDA candidates and agents across the District could have access to apply seals to boxes and packages as they were taken from Polling Places and, after verification and separation of the national election papers, were transported to the Knowle for final counting. For all District election concerns about issues outside the East Devon constituency, MW referred the EDA to the RO’s for the other constituencies within East Devon District.
This led to a number of unsatisfactory standards in the District elections, specifically:
1.The ballot boxes used in that part of the East Devon District in the Tiverton and Honiton Constituency were not rigid boxes (flexible cloth), so an elector could reach to touch previously cast ballot papers. At least one of these ballot boxes was damaged so that previously cast ballot papers were in full view.
2.None of the flexible cloth boxes could be sealed with the EDA seals, which were purchased following MW’s email illustrating what was a suitable seal. This caused great confusion and distress to candidates and polling officers alike.
3.The EDDC District election unused ballot papers and other information from the Central Devon Constituency RO were returned in an unsealed clear plastic bag.
4.When the ballot first opened at 7am Colyton Polling Place did not allow for privacy in voting. At first, only open tables were provided.
5.Conservative election advertisements for the District were placed within the premises of Polling Places in Otterhead. There was disagreement and delay between the East Devon RO (MW) and the Tiverton & Honiton RO as to who should take action to deal with this.
6.The Presiding Officer in Feniton illegally prevented a number of voters from casting their District vote. MW blamed the illegal behaviour of this PO on poor training by the Tiverton & Honiton RO.
7.Polling Places in Seaton had hour-long queues of voters. Who was responsible for predicting the popularity of voting in this town?
8.A Liberal Democrat candidate was allowed to hand out an electioneering leaflet (it said “Vote Liberal” and had the candidate’s imprint on it) inside the Polling Place at Axminster. This was reported by EDA to the Presiding Officer but no action was taken to prevent it happening.
We believe that the RO for the District elections should have responsibility for ensuring the safe and secret transport of information from the casting of electors’ District votes to their receipt at the final count location (Knowle). We also believe that the RO for District elections should have overall responsibility for the satisfactory conduct of the whole District ballot.
Comment 2 about Candidates’ and Agents’ experiences at the District election count.
Whilst we acknowledge the difficulty of running three elections on the same day, we believe that there was sufficient notice and central government funding so that the organisation could have been much more effective. At our meeting on March 4th we signalled our concern about this, and were concerned that MW refused to consider providing separate ballot boxes for the district and parish elections. This mechanism would have done much to ensure the visible integrity of the counting process
“Bearing in mind that most of the EDA candidates had no previous experience as a candidate, we believe that more help should have been forthcoming from MW to ensure that their legal rights as candidates were not inhibited.
“Specifically:
1.There was no general briefing for candidates and their agents about the procedure that would be followed at the count
2.There was no check of who was allowed into the count. As a result, the room was very overcrowded and observers were inhibited from carrying out their function of observing the counting agents.
3.It is a requirement for the RO to provide facilities for Party agents to check that their seals on ballot boxes are unbroken. The arrangements for this were inadequate because the EDA agent was kept out of the area where the boxes were brought prior to opening them.
4.It is a requirement for the RO to share the verification results with candidates and/or their agents prior to proceeding to the count. This is the relevant statement in the EC instructions for ROs: “Any agent may make a copy of this, and indeed you should make available copies of this for the agents present once verification has been completed”. This was not done with EDA candidates/agents.
5.It is a requirement that the RO should share with candidates and agents the reasons why he has decided to reject various ballot papers. This is the relevant instruction from the EC booklet on dealing with doubtful ballot papers: “When undertaking the adjudication of ballot papers it is important to ensure that the process is carried out in full view of all candidates and agents present at the count”. This was not done with EDA candidates/agents.
6.The multi-member Ward ballot papers were sorted in different ways by different counting agents. There was no standard way of doing it. Observers watched as some agents were trying to sort ballot papers into piles based on all the possible permutations of voting. At this point the agents were very tired, so this was an enormous task for them and led to many challenges from observers. We recommend that a simpler standardised approach be taken to pre-sorting the ballot papers that requires decisions between at most three or four different piles on each sort.
7.The multi-member Wards were counted using the “grass skirt” method.
[For an explanation of the “grass skirt method” see here
Only one person was involved in preparing and counting the grass skirt, which is the most complex of the vote permutations, whereas other, simpler counts were always checked by at least one other person. The grass skirt was used extensively in the counts for some of the closest Ward results in the District.
8.It is a requirement for the RO to share the count results with candidates and/or their agents prior to announcing the result for their Ward. This is so that candidates can request a recount if the result is close. This is the relevant instruction in the EC instructions for ROs: “7.34 Once satisfied, you must advise candidates and election agents of the provisional result and you should seek their agreement on the announcement of the result. You should make clear that the candidates and agents are entitled to request a recount”. This was not done with EDA candidates/agents.
9.Many of the declared results for the District Council do not have a complete statement about the reasons for rejection of ballot papers as required by law. Given that candidates and agents were not made privy to the reasons for rejecting individual ballot papers during the count, this gives some cause for concern.
We understand that previous East Devon District elections have not been hugely competitive and this may have led to some casual practices in verification and counting of votes. However, publicity and debate prior to the 2015 elections should have led the RO to expect a high turnout and close results. Because of this we believe that the RO should have taken particular care to ensure that election law and the spirit of election law were more carefully followed.
A report from Elizabeth Gorst, the Electoral Commission representative for the 2015 elections, said:
Feedback for the attention of Mark Williams, Returning Officer:
1)You explained to me that postal vote identifiers were not checked for postal votes delivered to the count. You should ensure that you make provision to check 100% of postal vote identifiers, even for postal ballot papers being delivered last-minute to the count. A 100% check is now a legal requirement.
2)Some less experienced candidates and agents were not clear on the processes being followed to count the multi member wards – separation of block votes, grass skirts etc. At one point this resulted in a heated exchange between an observer and a non-supervisory member of count staff as to whether there was a better way to count the votes! We would recommend that you provide a written guide to attendees in advance of the event of the processes that will take place.
3)Some count staff themselves did not appear to be clear about the processes they had to follow and particularly in respect of the multi member count. For example I noted staff at the start of the count who were not familiar with extraction of block votes or the use of grass skirts and were initially looking puzzled/confused about the processes they were being asked to undertake. This in turn impacts on the confidence of observers. Additionally, as I raised with you, during verification there was a mixture of face up and face down verification being carried out. We would recommend that you review your provision of training to count staff. Also that written instructions are provided in advance of the event to all count staff.
4)You announced the start of each local government ward count (no PA system in place). It is also helpful if the ward name on the empty ballot box is positioned in such a way as to be visible to observers throughout the count. The same advice applies to verification.
5)When the ballot papers have been removed from a ballot box at verification or count stage, the empty box should be shown to agents and observers so that they can be satisfied that it is indeed empty.
6)A PA system should be in operation to ensure that all attendees at the count can clearly hear announcements
7)We recommend that you review your processes for stacking and signposting ballot papers on the individual counting tables. As an observer it was difficult to see what the various piles of ballot tables on the paper related to. Staff were also confused by moments about what ballot paper should go where. Sorting trays with labels would improve transparency and auditability.
8)We recommend that you develop a suite of paperwork for count staff and supervisors for recording counted votes. I noticed staff on count tables relying on A4 pads of paper to add up the total number of votes for each candidate.
9)Count staff seemed to be missing other stationery items – personal mobiles phones were being used as calculators and I noted staff working on grass skirts having to share pencils.
10) Because of space constraints there was at times insufficient room on the tables for ballot papers. Completed grass skirts and other items were having to be stored on the floor beneath the tables. Wider tables would have alleviated this to some degree, but we would recommend that the detail of the count processes you will undertake are considered at an early stage as part of the selection and layout of your venue.
11) I was not clear that candidates and agents were being consulted on provisional results before proceeding to a declaration. Our advice to Returning Officers is that ‘you should advise candidates and election agents of the provisional result and seek their agreement on the announcement of the result…… This process should be undertaken within the framework of maximum openness and transparency….. so that all candidates and agents can have confidence in the processes and the provisional result provided.
12) I was also not clear on the process for adjudication of doubtful ballot papers. Because there was no distinct tray on the counting tables for doubtful papers (see point 6), it wasn’t easy to see the audit trail of those papers and how they were being adjudicated on and who was carrying this out. I also couldn’t see that agents were being given the opportunity to review rejected ballot papers.
13) It may be that the points I mention in 11 and 12 were being undertaken, but because there was no PA system, I was unaware that candidates and agents were called by the Returning Officer to hear the provisional result and review the rejected ballot papers. Usually the candidates and agents are called over a PA system to receive the provisional results. This ensures that all those entitled to hear the provisional result are aware that the Returning Officer is ready with this information.
14) You mentioned to me the space constraints of the venue and your consideration of other venues. Certainly for the local government count, the number of observers present meant that it was impossible to move freely around the count tables and clearly observe the processes taking place. We would recommend that you consider venues other than the council offices for future counts – not only in terms of the number of observers, but also the number of count staff you require to conduct the count to your planned timescale.
15) Your actual count timings varied from the estimates you had announced. High turnout, three-way verification, the complexity of the multi-member local government counts, available staffing resource (determined by venue size) and the lesser ability of some count staff all impacted on this. You will have gathered some valuable experience on timing and we would recommend that for future elections you review the experience of 2015 and factors influencing the timing of the count in establishing your resource requirements. For future events, it could be worth making calculations of likely numbers of ballot papers to be processed and then producing a sample of mock ballot papers on which you carry out tests of your timings and processes
16) At the local government count on Friday morning, there was no control of admission to the count. Given that only certain individuals are permitted by law to attend the count, such controls need to be in place.
The news comes after it was revealed East Devon was chosen as one of eight UK constituencies to be monitored as part of an international mission to ensure elections are fair.
The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) has announced that the constituency will be one of its target seats for the general election.
An Election Assessment Mission (EAM) will be conducted in the area from June 4 to 9 by Phillip Paulwell, an MP from Jamaica who will lead a team of Observers from the Commonwealth.
The Mission, which is being arranged by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association UK Branch (CPA UK) as it did in the 2015 and 2010 general elections, will also observe elections in seven other UK constituencies to oversee:
polling
counting
post-election complaints or appeals
The team will compromise of three parliamentarians and one election official from Tonga who will monitor Election Day procedures at polling stations, meet with candidates, returning officers, local officials, community groups and other relevant stakeholders in order to assess the conduct of the election.
In addition to the omnishambles about postal vote mistakes (twice) we should not forget this, too:
“East Devon’s returning officer has defended the delays at the count for the General Election in Sidmouth.
In a statement given to the press Mark Williams said: “This the first time since 1979 that we have had three elections in one night. The reasons why the government stopped this was that in rural areas like East Devon means the sheer volume of ballot papers that are prepared for counting causes a huge volume of work.”
Earlier Mr Williams said his team was ready and said the count would conclude at 2.30am. …
Question: How come other rural areas didn’t have this problem?
AND remember Mr Williams is paid EXTRA for his election duties. Wonder how much extra and whether cock-ups mean a pay cut? We will never know, because the job is not covered by the Freedom off Information Act and EDDC refuses to tell us. AND the Returning Officer has a big budget but because of that Freedom of Information block, we are not allowed to know what it is and, crucially, what happens to any underspend.
However, we do know that the Sheffield returning officer refused his fee of £20,000 in 2015 and here is a list of what other election staff are paid:
“Fees
Election officials’ fees vary widely from constituency to constituency but might typically be:
Presiding officer: £250-£300;
Poll clerk: £115-£190;
Postal vote issuer: £8 per hour;
Postal vote opener: £9 per hour;
Count supervisor: £150 night shift;
Counting assistant: £12.50 per hour (plus £10 training fee).”
Does anyone else find it ironic that Tory candidates are saying that they will “fight for” local hospitals, fairer funding for schools and our precious environment when it is THEIR party that brought the CCG’s that are already cutting beds by stealth, the unfair school funding and which wants to loosen environmental regulations as soon as possible to enable more building on green fields and who are trying to stop frightening air pollution figures being published?
The Tory battle cry seems to be:
“What do we want?”
“No bed cuts, fairer funding for schools and a healthy environment!”
“When do we want it?”
“Er, whenever Mrs May says we can have it, pretty please?”
“When will it be?
“Brexit means Brexit!”
Have fun with that one – and if you vote for the Tories in Devon just hope you, your children and grandchildren can afford a private education and health care and never need to go to an NHS A and E or GP – or breathe the air in our towns, cities and countryside – tall order!
We need a credible opposition at DCC to fight for us. Claire Wright has done a magnificent job fighting for our schools, our hospitals and our environment at DCC – but could do even more with an army of like-minded councillors alongside her whose battle cry would be:
“What do we want?”
“Our fair share in a clean, green Devon”
“When do we want it?”
“When our voters empower us to get it”
“When will it be”?
“When you vote Independent on 4 May!”
“Conservative MPs accused of breaking election spending rules at the last election face the possibility of being prosecuted by the Crown while they are in the middle of fighting their re-election campaigns at this year’s general election.
14 police forces have sent files to the Crown Prosecution Service relating to the Tory 2015 ‘battle bus’ scheme, which it has been alleged led to Tory candidates breaking strict spending limits on elections.
The CPS is currently reviewing the evidence and considering whether to charge the MPs with breaking the election spending limits, which are put in place to prevent those with wealthy backers from gaining an unfair advantage during general elections.
A spokesperson for the CPS confirmed to The Independent on Tuesday evening that any charges would have to be made before the date of the general election, which Theresa May wants to hold on 8 June subject to a vote in Parliament tomorrow.
This means the CPS’s announcement must by law fall while the MPs are campaigning for re-election, before 8 June.
No charges have yet been made against any MP. All 14 police forces who sent files to the CPS last year applied for a 12 month extension to the prosecution deadline, which would have otherwise elapsed last summer.
Channel 4 News reported on Tuesday evening that the CPS is considering prosecution against over 30 individuals with regards to 2015 election expenses.
As a result, a decision has to be made by the CPS by late May or early June, meaning that any charges will land during at least the long election campaign period, and possibly even the short campaign.
Police forces who have sent files to the CPS relating to the spending allegations include Avon & Somerset, Cumbria, Derbyshire, Devon & Cornwall, Gloucestershire, Greater Manchester, Lincolnshire, the Metropolitan, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire and West Yorkshire.
Two dozen Conservatives are understood to be under investigation over claims that they did not include battle bus spending in their local campaign returns. The Electoral Commission is also investigating the allegations in parallel to the police.
The allegations centre on whether spending on hotels for visiting activists and certain campaign material was incorrectly registered as national spending rather than locally – potentially illegitimately taking advantage of a higher spending ceiling.
A Conservative spokesman said: “We are cooperating with the ongoing investigations.”
There have been suggestions that other parties may have failed to register similar spending in their local areas too.
In theory election results in individual seats could be declared invalid if laws are found to have been broken, though this is not an automatic process.
In recent weeks some Conservative MPs have hit out at party officials who they say have dodged blame for the fiasco at the expense of MPs’ reputation.
“Theresa May has announced a snap election on 8 June 2017. But as the country prepares for another election campaign, it’s important to remember that MPs in her party are being investigated for election fraud for the 2015 general election. And given the mainstream media’s reluctance to report the issue, we need to ensure it is kept firmly on the agenda.
Allegations of fraud
12 police forces have submitted files to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) over allegations that up to 20 MPs and/or their agents broke election spending limits in the 2015 election. The CPS is deciding whether charges should be brought. And a decision is expected soon – and is likely to come during the election campaign.
The allegations centre around the ‘battle bus’ campaign, and associated expenses such as hotel rooms. Many argue that the campaign promoted prospective local MPs in key seats. Under election law, any expenditure which promotes a local candidate should be covered locally. But the ‘battle bus’ and associated costs were declared nationally. Each constituency has a fixed amount of money it can spend locally. And including the ‘battle bus’ expenditure would have meant many candidates overspent.
Additionally, the Election Commission fined the Conservatives £70,000 for multiple breaches in connection to election spending during the 2015 campaign.
And there’s more
But it isn’t just the “battle bus” campaigns where the Conservatives have been accused of fraud. As The Canary previously reported, there are questions over how the party used social media and, particularly, Facebook, to target voters.
And a report by the London School of Economics has also warned [pdf] that Facebook targeting opens the door to electoral fraud:
The ability to target specific people within a particular geographic area gives parties the opportunity to focus their attention on marginal voters within marginal constituencies. This means, in practice, that parties can direct significant effort – and therefore spending – at a small number of crucial seats. Yet, though the social media spending may be targeted directly at those constituencies, and at particular voters within those constituencies, the spending can currently be defined as national, for which limits are set far higher than for constituency spending.
Implications
Theresa May might think she is avoiding difficult byelections if charges are brought in any of the constituencies. But she is equally taking a huge risk. There is a possibility that she will be running an election campaign while MPs are facing fraud charges. And then there’s the question of whether those MPs and their agents will run in this election.
Either way, the British public get to choose whether they want to vote for a party being investigated for fraud; and a party that’s already been fined £70,000 for election expenses breaches. But in order to do so, it is essential we do not allow the issue to be swept under the table.”
Well done to him for admitting it – but his election agent shares the blame. Wonder if our Police and Crime Commissioner and ex-election agent Ms Alison Hernandez will be forthcoming? Owl’s guess – no. Will our Police and Crime Panel (Tory majority) do anything – no. Will we see any criminal proceedings – no. Would we see them if it was any other party or independent – you bet!
“A Conservative MP admitted in a police interview that some of his election expenses were wrong but excused the errors on the grounds that he had no previous political experience, according to a report on how police handled the inquiry.
Johnny Mercer, Tory MP for Plymouth Moor View, was investigated by police after the general election in 2015 and a file was handed to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). It was decided, however, that there was insufficient evidence to charge him with any offence.
A Devon and Cornwall police report from the time states that Mercer had acknowledged during an interview that “some of his claims had been wrong” but had argued that they were minor, did not take him over election spending limits and that this was understandable given his lack of political experience.
The admission calls into question the Conservative party’s claim that “the local agents of Conservative candidates correctly declared all local spending in the 2015 general election”. …”
“An urgent review of “weak and helpless” electoral laws is being demanded by a group of leading academics who say that uncontrolled “dark money” poses a threat to the fundamental principles of British democracy.
A working group set up by the London School of Economics warns that new technology has disrupted British politics to such an extent that current laws are unable to ensure a free and fair election or control the influence of money in politics.
Damian Tambini, director of the media policy project at the LSE, who heads the group made up of leading experts in the field, said that new forms of online campaigning had not only changed the ways that political parties target voters, but crucially had also altered the ability of big money interests to manipulate political debate. “There is a real danger we are heading down the US route where whoever spends the most money is most likely to win. That’s why we’ve always controlled spending in this country. But these controls are no longer working.”
Its policy brief published on Saturday concludes that current laws can no longer ensure the fundamental principle of a “level playing field”, or guard against foreign influence, and that parliament urgently needs to review UK electoral law.
It comes as questions continue to be asked about spending during the referendum campaign. In an interview published in Sunday’s Observer New Review, Arron Banks, the founder of the Leave.eu campaign, says: “We were just cleverer than the regulators and the politicians. Of course we were.”
The Electoral Commission is investigating whether work that the data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica may have done for Leave.eu constitutes an undeclared donation from an impermissible foreign donor. Cambridge Analytica is majority owned by the hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, who bankrolled Donald Trump. Filings from the White House disclosed on Friday that Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s strategy chief, was paid $125,333 by the firm last year.
Asked whether he was worried about the Electoral Commission’s investigation into Leave.eu, Banks said: “I don’t give a monkey’s about the Electoral Commission.”
Banks also claimed that Vote Leave “cheated” to get around campaign financing rules by donating money to third party campaigns. “They cheated! They gave 650 grand to a student. Come on! They absolutely, 100% cheated.”
A spokesman for Vote Leave responded: “The Electoral Commission gave us a clean bill of health.”
Privately, the commission admitted that the only penalties it was allowed to impose by law offered no deterrent to political parties, particularly in a one-off referendum. In addition, the LSE found that loopholes in electoral law mean that spending by political parties during the referendum was almost entirely unregulated or even recorded. The real cost of the campaign – building databases to target voters via social media – occurred almost entirely outside the period regulated by law.
Tambini said: “We don’t have a system that is working any more. In this country, we have had laws to control spending by political campaigns but online campaigning has changed everything and none of the existing laws cover it. The ability to throw around large amounts of cash is almost completely uncontrolled. The key costs in campaigning – building the databases – is happening during the period when campaign spending is not regulated at all.
“There is a real danger that public trust in the democratic process will be lost. There is real potential for foreign influence. We have now the ability to manipulate public opinion on a level we have never seen before. And the current framework is weak and helpless.”
The Electoral Commission has not yet made any public statement but privately it said: “We did have this environment that guaranteed a level playing field. But with the shift online that has all changed. We won’t be able to limit the power of money in elections, that’s what we’re very concerned about.”
Tambini said: “It is urgent. There could be a wholesale loss of trust in the process as the result of a scandal or swinging of an election. Though some would argue that has already happened. There has to be a principle of transparency. The public needs to know where the money is coming from. And we don’t.”
Martin Moore, director of the Centre for the Study of Media, Communication and Power, at King’s College London, said the machinery of campaigning had changed so rapidly, the law has had no chance to catch up. “The first election where digital made a difference was in 2008. And now it’s where pretty much all the spending is. It has been a shift that has happened in less than 10 years. What we’re seeing is exactly the same sort of disruption that we’ve seen in news and music and other industries.
“That is exactly what is happening in politics. The problem is that if you disrupt politics, you are also disrupting the democratic process and you are creating a very dangerous or volatile situation.”
In addition, the Electoral Commission said privately that it did not have the resources to monitor campaigns in real time. “It’s just not practical. There is some proactive stuff that we can do but we simply don’t have the resources.” The only action it can take is once the campaign is over and then the only penalties are fines which “campaigns can simply cost into their spends”.
“… That is the sort of thing which can not only destroy a government in the eyes of voters, it can wreck the party’s long-term standing too. Any serious prediction about the future has to factor in the possibility that there will be an even more destructive swamping with sleaze stories of Theresa May’s government than happened to John Major. That not only helped bring down a Prime Minister, it helped ensure his party failed to win an overall majority at the next four general elections in a row.
The odds of this happening are certainly a good way short of certain. But they are also far higher than the zero which so many pieces of coverage about how high the Conservatives are riding imply. … “
“Former Conservative MP Bob Spink, who defected to Ukip and became its first MP, has been charged with electoral fraud.
The 68-year-old has been charged alongside a second man, 38-year-old James Parkin, over allegations that they submitted false signatures on Ukip nomination papers.
The accusations relate to the local election for Castle Point Borough Council in south Essex, England in 2016. [Irish Times]”
“The [Conservative] party was fined £70,000 last week after an Electoral Commission inquiry found it had failed to record correctly £275,000 spent during the 2015 general election and at by-elections like Rochester.
An email showing how ‘Tatler Tory’ Mark Clarke and his mistress ran the Conservative Party battlebus campaign at the centre of an election expenses row was leaked last night.
In the email, Clarke tells MPs his battlebus will not affect their election expenses because it ‘is accounted for out of central campaign spend’. …
… In it, he says the campaign has the ‘full financial support of CCHQ (Tory HQ)’ and has been ‘signed off’ by election chief Lynton Crosby and party chairman Lord Feldman.
On ‘expenses and funding,’ Clarke says: ‘Our costs are met by donations contributed and declared via CCHQ. We fund all activist refreshment. This is not an election expense. We fund all the hotel and transport. This is an election expense and is accounted for out of central campaign spend.’
He advises MPs to contact battlebus campaign aide India Brummitt for further information. She can be seen in the audience in a film of Mrs May – then Home Secretary – in a crowded bar at Clarke’s ‘RoadTrip’ during the Rochester by-election, which the Tories lost to Ukip’s Mark Reckless. Mrs May tells Clarke: ‘What you are doing is absolutely tremendous.’ She leads a round of applause for him.” …
… The Electoral Commission report said the Tories were likely to have ‘understated the value’ of their spending on the three by-elections.
It said the party’s failure to accurately report its expenses meant there was a ‘realistic prospect’ that candidates gained a ‘financial advantage’ over opponents. Former Tory treasurer Simon Day was reported to the police and could face jail if found guilty. Up to two dozen Tory MPs could face charges of electoral fraud.”
“… Four aspects of this record fine are worth noting, especially in terms of what it means for forthcoming decisions on legal action against more Conservative MPs than makes up Theresa May’s majority in the House of Commons.
In short – it’s bad news for the Conservatives as the Electoral Commission has found repeated evidence of spending missing from constituency expense returns. That’s with the police, who have started interviewing MPs under caution, and the Crown Prosecution Service, which has received files from a dozen police forces now.
1. Conservative Party repeatedly hindered the Electoral Commission
The Conservative Party repeatedly refused to cooperate fully with the Electoral Commission investigation, requiring the Commission to go to court to get access to relevant evidence. Even after that, two further legal notices were issued in response to the party failing to provide information requested. The Electoral Commission also had to issue a legal order against a Conservative Party campaigner who “had chosen not to provide information voluntarily”.
“The Party hindered and caused delay to the investigation”, the Electoral Commission’s report concludes. This is notable different from its conclusions on other parties it has investigated recently, where cooperation was forthcoming and sustained.
2. When parties split costs, they must keep good evidence
It is a normal and legal part of election expenditure to split some costs between different legal areas. For example, a leaflet might both promote a local election candidate and a general election candidate and as a result its costs are split between the two candidate’s different expense limits.
One area where the Electoral Commission found against the Conservative Party was over its splitting of staff costs where staff were located in a constituency at the time of a by-election but were also continuing with their normal party roles as well as helping on the by-election.
“The Party could provide no record of how those proportions were determined for any of the by-elections. It did not have any written record of the formula at all, either generally or in relation to any of the three by-elections,” the Electoral Commission reports.
3. Police investigations into Conservative MPs are continuing
As the Electoral Commission’s report says, “The Commission does not have specific powers to investigate and enforce incomplete candidate returns”. The fines and police referral by the Electoral Commission are all about national record keeping and expense limit compliance, not what MPs and their agents got up to.
4. Electoral Commission’s conclusions worsen the legal risk faced by Conservative MPs
All the accommodation costs for national staff relocated to constituencies during three Parliamentary by-elections which the Electoral Commission investigated should have been included in local constituency returns even if the staff were spending some of their time on non-constituency campaigning.
That’s because otherwise they would have been based in their normal offices without accommodation being paid: “There is no reason the Commission can see as to why only an unspecified proportion of the accommodation costs for staff was included in the invoices to candidates. The Commission is satisfied that the entire accommodation costs, for staff and volunteers, were incurred for the purpose of basing individuals in Newark, Clacton and Rochester and Strood, to facilitate those individuals’ work on the respective by-election campaigns. This money would not have been spent otherwise.”
Moreover, when it comes to the Thanet South general election contest, the Electoral Commission has concluded that some of the expenses put on the party’s national expense return should have been included in the constituency return instead as they were for constituency campaigning: “The Commission is satisfied that a proportion of the costs included in the Party’s campaign spending return associated with the team based in South Thanet did not relate to Party campaign spending and should not have been included in the Party’s spending return. In particular, a proportion of the £15,641 included in the Party’s 2015 UKPGE spending return in relation to the Royal Harbour Hotel constituted candidate campaign expenses and should not have been included in the return.”
Likewise on the Conservative battlebus tour, the Electoral Commission has found that the Conservative Party wrongly claimed that all its costs were national election expenditure because in reality the battlebus operation often promoted constituency candidates and so a proportion of its costs should have counted against their limits.
Because the Electoral Commission doesn’t have direct jurisdiction over constituency returns, the question therefore of under-declaring costs on constituency returns has not been followed up by them in this report. That, however, is a matter for the ongoing police investigations. For example, on the question of the Conservative battlebus, the Electoral Commission concludes: “The Commission has not sought to identify the extent to which any affected candidates may have underreported their campaign spending, which is an RPA [Representation of the People Act] matter and therefore a matter for the police.”
In other words, the Electoral Commission has found a number of issues which directly mean that constituency expense returns were wrong. They haven’t issued fines or taken other action over them as those matters are with the police.”
Owl says: £70,000 – laughable. Four pots of Hugo Swire’s honey (allowing for inflation) auctioned off at the next Tory fundraiser will sort that out. £700,000 better, £7 million best! AND if the party can’t keep track of this sort of accounting – what sort of mess is it making regionally and nationally!
“The Electoral Commission has fined the Conservative Party £70,000 over “significant” election campaign expenses issues.
The independent elections watchdog said the party had made “numerous failures” in reporting its expenses for the 2015 General Election and three by-elections in 2014.
It has also referred one matter, relating to the party’s treasurer declaring he had examined the return and believed it to be complete and correct, to the Metropolitan Police.
The investigation found the party’s 2015 General Election spending return was missing payments worth at least £104,765.
Separately, payments worth up to £118,124 were either not reported to the Commission or were incorrectly reported. …
… Commission chairman Sir John Holmes said the Tories’ failure to follow the rules “undermined voters’ confidence in our democratic processes” and said there was a risk political parties were seeing such fines as “a cost of doing business”.
The fine comes after a dozen police forces announced they had sent files to the Crown Prosecution Service as part of a probe into the Conservatives’ 2015 election expenses.
The allegations centre around whether spending on hotels for visiting activists and certain campaign material was incorrectly registered as national rather than local spending.
At least three Tory MPs have been quizzed by police investigating whether election finance laws were broken in the 2015 contest.
Sir John said: “Our investigation uncovered numerous failures by a large, well-resourced and experienced party to ensure that accurate records of spending were maintained and that all of the party’s spending was reported correctly.
“The rules established by Parliament for political parties and their finances are there to ensure transparency and accountability.
“Where the rules are not followed, it undermines voters’ confidence in our democratic processes, which is why political parties need to take their responsibilities under the legislation seriously.”
He went on: “This is the third investigation we have recently concluded where the largest political parties have failed to report up to six-figure sums following major elections, and have been fined as a result.
“There is a risk that some political parties might come to view the payment of these fines as a cost of doing business; the Commission therefore needs to be able to impose sanctions that are proportionate to the levels of spending now routinely handled by parties and campaigners.”
Responding to the investigation, a Conservative Party spokesman said the party had complied fully with the investigation and will pay the fines imposed.
“As we have consistently said, the local agents of Conservative candidates correctly declared all local spending in the 2015 general election.”
He said the party’s campaign headquarters “accepted in March 2016 that it had made an administrative error by not declaring a small amount constituting 0.6 per cent of our national spending in the 2015 election campaign.
“This error was subsequently corrected and the Party has since improved its accounting practices, reporting structures and staff guidance. Even taking this into account, the Conservative Party still considerably underspent the statutory national spending limits for the 2015 general election.”
Electoral rules currently allow political parties to invite voters to send postal ballot application forms (not the actual completed ballot papers) to political party offices rather than to the local authority conducting the election. As the website Skwawkbox says below, this would appear to be potentially fraught with the risk of facilitating fraudulent applications, but it is currently permitted.
However, political parties are not allowed to encourage voters to do this. In fact, the Postal Vote Code of Conduct instructs them to discourage it by making the preferred return address that of the official Electoral Returning Officer.
gives an example where a local Tory office of a nearby authority (Somerset) gave its own address as its first option and that of the Electoral Returning Officer as the second option. With no address given for the ERO.
From Skwawkbox.
“A local resident wrote to Somerset County Council’s Strategic Manager of Governance and Risk about this breach and received this response:
“Thanks for sending a scan of the letter. Having studied the Code of conduct for campaigners in Great Britain and spoken to the Electoral Commission the letter should have the Electoral Services Office as the primary address for return of the form. The letter can include a secondary address.
Clearly this is not the case with the example that you sent through. Campaigners can receive completed forms and should then forward them to the Electoral Registration Officer’s address within two working days of receipt.
In the light of what you have sent through Pat Flaherty as County Returning Officer has raised this formally as an issue with the Conservative Party elections agent to point out what needs to happen under the requirements of the Code.”
As Skwawkbox says:
“This may seem like a small ‘technicality’, but it’s in such seemingly insignificant areas that space for election-tampering can exist – affecting the wellbeing of thousands and even millions of our citizens. … “
Skwawkbox is asking its readers to check for similar errors on party political websites to see what they say about arrangements for postal vote application forms and to let it know of any potential infringements of the Code of Conduct.
Our current Police and Crime Commissioner, Alison Hernandez, was election agent for MP Kevin Foster [Torbay] who took the seat from Lib Dems with a majority of 3,286 at the last election with just over 40% of voters choosing him.
“A Conservative MP has been interviewed under caution as part of an ongoing police inquiry into whether the party overspent in its campaign for South Thanet in the 2015 general election, when they were up against Nigel Farage.
Craig Mackinlay, the MP who won the seat against the former Ukip leader, is said to have spent about six hours speaking to police about their investigation, which has been going on for about a year.
Asked about the interview, a Conservative spokesman said: “We are cooperating with the ongoing investigations.” Mackinlay did not reply to a request for comment.
There is growing panic in the Conservative party about the scale of police probes into election spending, which could affect dozens of MPs. A separate investigation by the Electoral Commission into whether the national party broke election spending limits is also under way and expected to come to a head within weeks.
The allegations, first uncovered by Channel 4 News, are that spending in marginal seats on a battlebus tour and teams of party officials was wrongly recorded as national, rather than local spending.
The penalties for wrongly declaring local elections are steep, with possible criminal charges for MPs and their election agents, and results can be declared void.
It is understood police could meet the Crown Prosecution Service as early as 21 March to discuss bringing a possible charge in relation to South Thanet, where Farage was narrowly beaten by Mackinley.
Nigel Farage says he would stand for election again in South Thanet
Farage, the former Ukip leader, has already said he may be interested in rerunning in the Kent coastal seat if it there were to be a prosecution and byelection.
Kent police said: “The investigation into this complex matter is ongoing and officers continue to follow lines of enquiry. Therefore it would not be appropriate to comment further.
“Officers from Kent police continue to work with the Electoral Commission as the investigation continues.”
Separately, a group of Conservative MPs under investigation over their election expenses are growing increasingly frustrated at the lack of support from the party’s headquarters.
One has sent an email to Tory HQ accusing the party of keeping secret a draft of the Electoral Commission report from MPs whose local spending returns are under investigation.
In an email seen by Sky News, Karl McCartney, a Tory MP [Lincoln] under investigation who is helping other MPs, accused party officials of trying to save themselves rather than help those who were elected.
He wrote that his colleagues “feel completely cast adrift by CCHQ/whips/the parliamentary party and left to fend for themselves”.
He added: “At what stage do you think you (the party) might inform us that another media s***storm is coming? We didn’t create this mess, the clever dicks at CCHQ did, and I don’t see their professional reputations being trashed in the media much.”
“The initial cock-ups, ‘strategy’ and ineptitude with regard to this issue that has so negatively impacted our: lives, standing in our communities, standing amongst colleagues, families and our regard for particular parts of the party centrally, and were all of CCHQ’s making … need to stop.
“We are the ones who are now (and since the beginning as individuals have been) in the media spotlight and it might have been a little more reassuring and collegiate if the powers that be in our party perhaps tried to be a little bit more supportive and less interested in covering their own backsides.”
“Over the past year, a Channel 4 News investigations team has unearthed compelling evidence that the Conservative Party may have broken election laws to fight three by-elections in 2014 and win power in the 2015 General Election.
The Battlebus 2015 campaign sent a fleet of coaches filled with Conservative activists into 29 marginal seats in the final weeks of the 2015 General Election – to persuade voters on the doorstep.
The whole Battlebus campaign is now under investigation – after allegations that Conservative candidates may have broken election law by failing to declare the costs on their local spending returns.
The Party has repeatedly said the spending on the bus tour should have been declared nationally not locally.
But two Tory whistleblowers have spoken to Channel 4 News and cast doubt on that claim.
They say the party is “lying” about what happened on the Battlebus – and is now engaged in a “cover-up”.
Battlebus activists
Gregg and Louise Kinsell volunteered for the Conservatives in the final few days of the “Battlebus 2015” campaign in the South West, working in four key seats for the party.
Louise says that: “We worked for the local candidates and MPs to ensure that they won their seat and we were sent wherever they thought we would help.”
The Conservatives insist the Battlebus was a national event, with volunteers only promoting the party and not specific local candidates. As such the Battlebus was only declared in the Party’s national campaign expenses.
Last year, David Cameron said: “Lots of political parties have these bus tours – you know buses that go round different constituencies and this is a national expense.”
But the Kinsells say they were tasked with promoting local candidates,
including being given local briefing papers and seat-specific scripts, being furnished with specific voter data and distributing local leaflets.
Gregg said: “If people are saying, and the MPs concerned in these areas are saying it was part of a greater expense nationally for the Conservatives, that is a lie and an obvious falsehood. In that case I feel especially motivated to go to the police and go to the Electoral Commission.”
“So they are telling lies about what we did – and we duped people on the doors, it feels like cheating.”
All four seats visited by the Kinsells on the Battlebus tour were won for the Tories and the party took 14 seats in the South West in total, wiping out their Liberal Democrats coalition partners from the region.
Louise Kinsell said, “We went down and worked for individual candidates who then won their seat. If they hadn’t won their seat, the Conservatives may not have won the election.”
Police investigation
The Battlebus tour is currently under investigation. Under election laws, any costs incurred to promote a candidate, must be declared on local candidate spending returns. It’s a criminal offence for the candidate and agent to knowingly make a false declaration.
Channel 4 News has previously revealed that hundreds of thousands of pounds in Conservative campaign spending may not have been properly declared.
And the Kinsells have revealed more examples of what they believe are questionable campaign spending.
The Battlebus group stayed at the Jury’s Inn in Plymouth. Channel 4 News has seen a hotel bill for 29 rooms at the Jury’s Inn totalling £2,520. But that hotel does not appear to have been declared in the national expenses.
The Battlebus tour was then accommodated at the Premier Inn and Travelodge in Hayle, Cornwall. Again, these hotels do not appear to have been accounted for in the Conservative national returns.
The Conservative Party has previously stated that the failure to declare the hotels used on the Battlebus campaign as an “administrative error”.
In the nine seats visited by the Battlebus in the South West, the Conservatives candidates declared that they had spent below the legal limit, as governed by electoral law.
However, Channel 4 News has calculated the cost of the buses, hotels, and staff for the Battlebus tour in the region amounts to £2,460 for each seat visited. If the activists took part in local campaigning, this cost should have been declared on local spending returns.
The Kinsells say there is now a “code of silence” amongst Party activists about what took place on the Battlebus tour.
“It has shocked me that they have been this arrogant and think they can get away with it.”
The Kinsells say they feel betrayed by the Conservatives. “We were on the bus. We know what happened. We know what we were doing. And they know what we were doing.
Gregg Kinsell said: “I feel like there’s been a betrayal. We were unwitting participants in a huge betrayal. That’s how I feel.”
A Conservative spokesman said: “We are cooperating with the ongoing investigations.”
None of the candidates responsed to requests for comment.
Owl is not convinced that this government or even EDDC – wants a more inclusive electoral register – students were mostly against Brexit and they often vote for minority parties.
It will be interesting to see what efforts our electoral registration officer (CEO Mark Williams) will make to ensure that East Devon registers more voters – after the fiasco at the last election, where frantic efforts had to be made at the last-minute to find 6,000 voters who had dropped off the electoral roll due to changes in procedures authorised by Mr Williams but which very much displeased the parliamentary committee to which he was summoned to explain his unilateral changes.
“Before the Lords voted against Brexit yesterday in the House of Lords, the government was defeated on another important democratic issue: voter registration. This passed largely without comment by the media (and went unmentioned in the BBC’s Yesterday in Parliament, for example). It is unsurprising that voter registration rarely receives the same level of coverage as Brexit, but it is nonetheless a vital issue.
Up to 8 million people were thought to be missing from the electoral register in 2015. Research shows that citizens were turned away from the polls at the Brexit referendum because they were not registered to vote.
Registration levels have been declining for a long time. It was long forecasted that this decline would continue under individual electoral registration (IER). The introduction of online voter registration and voter outreach work from organisations such as Bite the Ballot did much to address this in the run-up to the EU referendum. But now the referendum is past, we should expect the completeness of the register to slide away again.
One group that research predicted would be hardest hit was students. Under the old household electoral registration system, they were automatically enrolled by their university administration. Although data on the number who have fallen off the register is hard to track, we know that young people were especially affected by IER. It was therefore a mistake that the Electoral Administration Act of 2013 did not provide for a suitable student registration to be put in place when the old system of household registration was abolished.
Yesterday, an amendment to the Higher Education and Research Bill was introduced to require universities to offer students the opportunity to register to vote at the point of enrolment or re-registration as a student at their university. A successful example of a scheme like this was piloted at Sheffield University, where student registration rates soared to a quoted 76% of its eligible students registered, compared to 13% at similar-sized institutions. The amendment offers an opportunity to save significant funds too. The head of registration services at Sheffield Council has confirmed that the cost of registering a student with this model is just 12p, rather than £5. Cardiff Council calculates that using this scheme for combining enrolment with electoral registration has saved it some £63,000.
The amendment was passed, against the government, by a majority of 200 to 189.
Beyond students: towards a more inclusive democracy
The principle behind the amendment is a simple and powerful one. Make voter registration easy and convenient and more people will register. If you combine registration with other administrative jobs, such as paying council tax or renewing a driving licence, the paperwork-adverse citizen will be more likely to complete it. It is important that measures therefore go beyond supporting student registration and that the idea is extended to other public services to engage the wider public.
There is a powerful research and international practice to suggest that this works. In the US, a federal Act was passed in the 1990s to expand the number of locations and opportunities whereby eligible citizens could apply to register to vote. In particular, citizens were to be given a voter registration application when they applied for or renewed a driver’s licence (hence it became known as the ‘Motor Voter Act’), or when applying for (or receiving) services at certain other public offices. Nearly one third of registrations are submitted in the US at motor vehicle agencies. Some studies suggest it raised turnout by around 2 percentage points and some have argued that the results could have been even better with improved implementation.
Support for making registration easier dates back to 2014, when a select committee report on Voter Engagement proposed making it automatic. This became the basis of some party manifestos. There is now a growing cross-party consensus about a set of measures that could be used to address the problem of the Missing Millions, with a report on the issue published last year and backed by members of all political parties in Westminster. After all the divisions the Brexit debate has opened up, the effort to build a complete and inclusive democracy is more important than ever before. …”
From the blog of Dr Mark Pack – who is assiduously following the cases of electoral fraud from the 2015 elections:
“Last year I covered the odd case of a man facing trial on electoral fraud charges who managed to get the trial delayed… because he was running for Police and Crime Commissioner.
When I published that earlier post, he commented on this site, saying, “with complaints about the investigating Policeman, the behaviour of the Judge, the incompetence of the Court, and the fact that the CPS have only circumstantial evidence, it is most unlikely that this case will ever go to trial”.
Well, the trial has now happened and Steve Uncles of the English Democrats found guilty:
“A disgraced far-right activist is facing jail for cheating the election system by submitting fraudulent nomination forms.
English Democrats regional leader Steven Uncles dreamt up fictitious names such as Anna Cleves and Rachelle Stevens – referred to by a judge as “the lady from S Club 7”.
The 52-year-old local politician, who has since resigned but remained an official in high office, was convicted of seven charges of using a false instrument with intent and two of causing or permitting a false statement to be included in a nomination form…
The case faced several delays caused by Uncles applying for adjournments – one being because he ran for the post of Police Commissioner in May last year.
He failed to appear on the first day of his trial on February 8 and was arrested on a warrant outside the court when he turned up the next day. He has denied breaching his bail. [Kent Online]
East Devon Watch 