Select Committee on Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Written Evidence


Memorandum by Royal Mail Group plc (POS 20)

  Royal Mail Group plc welcomes the recommendations of the Electoral Commission for all-postal voting to become standard for local elections, subject to legislation against fraud being tightened ("The Shape of Elections to Come" July 2003). Once enacted, The European Parliamentary and Local Elections Pilot Bill will see Yorkshire and the Humber, the North-West, the North-East and the East Midlands piloting all-postal voting in June 2004. Royal Mail believes that these larger regionally based pilots should test fully the feasibility, acceptability and operational effectiveness of the new methods of voting prior to a possible all-postal national election.

  The Select Committee asked for six areas to be considered in the course of their inquiry, and we have addressed each issue below.

1.  PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS

  1.1  The most serious negative public perception of postal voting focused on its vulnerability to fraud. Yet, whilst the public may feel that postal voting is more susceptible to fraud than traditional polling station elections, the reality is that Royal Mail is well used to handling sensitive items such as cheques and credit cards and instances of fraud are extremely rare. The security procedures in place for postal voting are strict and these are discussed in more detail in section 2.

  1.2  A second issue raised in public debate concerns the potential impact of industrial action on all-postal ballots. Royal Mail is developing contingencies against such events, and has recently completed satisfactory pay discussions with the Communication Workers Union which have significantly reduced this risk. We are fully committed to successful, safe and secure all-postal balloting.

2.  ELECTORAL FRAUD

  2.1  Electoral fraud is a key consideration for any form of voting but particularly for "remote" voting. Whilst this issue is high in public perceptions of the problems of postal voting, the Electoral Commission's evaluation of the May 2003 all-postal pilots found only very limited evidence of any increase in fraud or electoral offences linked to the use of all postal ballots. In its evaluation report, the Electoral Commission states "all postal voting has a positive effect on voter participation and can provide safeguards at least as effective as those in traditional elections—provided that the recommendations made by the Commission for improving security and confidence are implemented". Despite the concerns expressed about fraud, MORI research indicated that this did not deter people from voting (Attitudes towards Voting and the Political Process in 2003, MORI, August 2003) and they found those who did not vote chose not to do so because of political disaffection rather than concerns about security or fraud.

  2.2  The main concern with postal voting fraud concerns personation. There are two ways in which this could occur, and Royal Mail is addressing both problems. The first concern arises when postal ballot papers are returned to Royal Mail marked "not known at this address", usually as a result of people moving and not updating their electoral registration. To address these concerns, Royal Mail, will advise councils to run a mini-canvass as near to the election as possible to ensure that the electoral register is as up to date as possible.

  2.3  The second concern regards multi occupancy dwellings such as flats, nursing homes, rooming houses and halls of residence where mail is often left unattended allowing for the removal of mail by persons other than the addressee. Whilst Royal Mail takes every effort to ensure that the mail is safe, our commitment and liability is to the first point of entry/delivery to a particular address. We are unable to influence its internal delivery or collection once mail has been delivered and it is the occupants/individual's responsibility to ensure that mail is secure. Therefore Royal Mail would advise local authorities, who will have key information about their own areas and the type of housing, to consider this issue further.

  2.4  Despite these concerns, the Electoral Commission found no specific evidence of personation in all postal voting pilots either in 2002 or 2003. Fears should also be allayed by the provision in the European Parliamentary and Local Elections Pilot Bill to allow the existing statutory provisions on personation to be extended to give the police the power of arrest, based on 'reasonable suspicion' of personation, at any location, not just at polling stations.

  2.5  A final issue concerns the possibility of ballot papers not being delivered due to staff intercepting them, for whatever reason. During any election a full audit trail will be provided. This is in addition to Royal Mail's well-established vetting and prosecution policy, our internal security force of over 500 employees and our network of CCTV cameras in all sorting offices. There is actually very little manual handling of postal votes in the mail and we are confident that our people will carry out their duties in terms of the secure collection and delivery of postal votes with due care and integrity. Any member of Royal Mail Group plc found deliberately tampering with or failing to deliver postal votes will be subject to full disciplinary procedure and possible legal action.

  2.6  The Electoral Commission has recommended a number of changes to current electoral practice and law which should further reassure the public of the security of all-postal voting. The European Parliamentary and Local Elections (Pilots) Bill includes many of these measures to improve the security of postal voting and to help build confidence and trust in the new system. The ODPM has also made a number of suggestions to tackle fraud for all-postal pilots, including changes to the ballot papers, secure delivery of ballot papers, targeting problem areas, contacting a sample of electors, publicising ways of reporting fraud or attempted fraud, and police intervention. Royal Mail welcomes the suggestions from both the Electoral Commission and the ODPM and is keen to tackle and pre-empt fraud through these methods and others, such as public awareness campaigns. Many of the security and fraud concerns are, in fact, just as applicable to traditional voting. A public awareness campaign should begin to address the perception issues surrounding them.

3.  IMPACT ON TURNOUT

  3.1  The average turnout for postal pilot elections is significantly higher than for traditional voting methods. One such example is from the Stevenage Borough elections (Annex 1) where turnout has doubled from 25.7% in 1988 (using conventional voting methods) to 52.2% in 2003 (using postal voting). The average turnout for all last year's all-postal pilots was 49.3%.

4.  ADMINISTRATION AND COST

  4.1  As much notice of an election as possible should be given Royal Mail. This will result in a better quality of service. Given the responsibility Royal Mail would have for ensuring the success of all-postal voting, we are keen to remain involved at all stages of the planning process. There are a number of practical issues to consider, including the size and weight of any documents sent and the delivery of unaddressed electoral material. Heavier volumes of mail during a combined election will also require Royal Mail to schedule staff and vehicles carefully to prevent capacity problems. Advance planning, which enables a high proportion of the extra mail volume to be mechanically sorted, will help alleviate any such problems. To facilitate this planning, we ask that any new timetable of elections should be published well in advance to enable us to align our plans and resources to provide the best possible service.

  4.2  When considering costs, the Electoral Commission stated that the total cost of an all-postal election is higher than that for conventional elections. However, much of this increased cost is incurred by increased publicity undertaken by the authorities, especially those carrying out an all-postal election pilot for the first time. Many of the 2003 pilot authorities have created promotional budgets linked to pilot activity, but have never previously undertaken this level of publicity activity for local elections. As a result, their costs automatically exceed the costs of previous conventional elections. If these promotional costs are stripped out, the comparisons are much closer—and in some cases the all-postal method would be cheaper.

  4.3  The cost per voter in all-postal schemes ranged from £1.42 to £5.03 per voter, as compared to a typical cost for traditional elections of just over £1. Nevertheless, authorities who have already held postal elections appear to be comfortable that the additional costs reap significant benefits.

5.  ACCESS AND DISABILITY ISSUES

  5.1  Scope held a review of the 2003 voting pilots and concluded that, "the majority of disabled people thought that postal voting was an easy and convenient way to vote . . . though postal voting is inherently inaccessible to some disabled people. Visually impaired people are one such obvious group but it also includes many people with communication, neurological, learning and co-ordination impairments." (Polls Apart, Developing inclusive e-democracy, An evaluation of the accessibility of the May 2003 electoral pilot voting schemes, Scope, 2003)

  5.2  The Scope review raised the concern that postal voting means that certain people will not be able to vote in secret. Scope stated that comprehensive provision of the tactile voting device and the large print version of the ballot paper are crucial to minimizing the numbers of people who are unable to vote independently using any voting system that uses paper. Effective promotion of these voting aids is therefore crucial, particularly in an all-postal election where disabled people need to request them rather than accessing them at the polling station. Royal Mail and the Electoral Commission's Best Practice Guidance support both the use and promotion of these voting aids.

  5.3  A further risk is that of coercion, where people may be put under pressure to vote in a certain way or have their vote completed by someone else. Scope says that many disabled people who need support will seek it informally, through their family and friends or their carers. Although many may be comfortable with this situation, some may not. To address this, local authorities need to create structures of independent voter support to ensure that disabled people can request assistance from an impartial person such as a council official. Royal Mail supports this advice.

  5.4  Scope also states that local authorities have an obligation to make postal voting as accessible as possible and, although some local authorities tried hard, it was disappointed that many did not adopt even basic good practice. Royal Mail is now working closely with the Electoral Commission to ensure that local councils are advised of these accessibility issues. One way this will be done is through the Electoral Commission's recently published good practice guidance aimed at improving access to electoral services by people who face disadvantages in using traditional voting systems. The guidance, Equal access to electoral procedures, aims to provide electoral administrators with practical examples and advice on how best to ensure equal access to polling stations, election literature, poll cards and electoral registration forms when preparing for elections. Royal Mail strongly supports this guidance.

6.  VOTER CHOICE

  6.1  The Electoral Commission strategic evaluation of the 2003 electoral pilot schemes has stated that "there are real risks that if Returning Officers in areas with repeated experience of all-postal elections are obliged to revert to use of polling stations alone, voters will express considerable frustration and disappointment". Beyond this, both the MORI and Electoral Commission surveys have found public attitudes towards new types of voting across the pilots to be positive, with choice emerging as a key issue and multi-channel pilots being preferred. To ensure a good take up of postal voting, the Electoral Commission states "Effective promotion of the availability of postal voting is critical . . . in terms of promoting postal and proxy votes, local authorities do believe that publicity can make a significant positive impact; and this applies to virtually all forms of publicity but in particular to those that have been produced locally". Royal Mail fully supports the need for such publicity.

  For the 2004 June pilots, Royal Mail will work closely with councils, and especially those new to all postal voting, on the wording and design related to security statements, barcodes and other materials to ensure that all public concerns are fully addressed in election material. In addition, Royal Mail has produced a "best practice guide", which is essentially an operational plan based on our experience of previous pilots. Royal Mail will also advise councils on how best they can communicate their security measures to the electorate in order to enhance public knowledge about how anti-fraud measures will be used in all-postal voting pilots.

Royal Mail Group plc

February 2004

Annex 1

CASE STUDY OF STEVENAGE BOROUGH COUNCIL

  Stevenage Borough Council held an All Postal Voting Pilot during the May 2003 Local Election. Following a successful all postal voting pilot for the previous year's elections, Stevenage Borough Council again opted to run their May local elections through an all-postal voting pilot with the aim of achieving a turnout level of at least half the eligible electorate. The council surpassed its target and achieved a turnout of 52.2%. A further success of the pilot was a significant improvement in cost effectiveness as compared to a traditional election. The all-postal vote cost £1.00 per vote. This is 50p a vote cheaper than using polling booths.

  The 2002 pilot had identified a need for additional security measures to ensure the success of the 2003 pilot. This was successfully achieved through the use of barcoding and, to cater for those voters who did not want to use the post, a drop off facility was provided at the council offices for those residents not wishing to vote by post. The administration of the election proved to be straightforward due to an excellent working relationship between the council and Royal Mail. Royal Mail's Mailsort and Business Response mailing services were used to accommodate the large volumes of local authority mail.

  Overall, the pilot achieved its turnout target while meeting the security and cost saving requirements of the council. In addition, postal voting proved to be a popular method of voting with residents and councillors alike. Awareness of the pilot was also good as the council used a variety of promotional activities including newspaper coverage, mailshots, radio advertising and a poster campaign.

TURNOUT IN THE BOROUGH OF STEVENAGE 1998-2003


Year of election
Voting arrangementsTurnout%


1998
Conventional 25.7
1999Conventional29.7
2000Conventional29.0
2002All postal52.9
2003All postal52.2



Annex 2

CASE STUDY OF HEREFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

  Herefordshire County Council also held an All-Postal Voting Pilot in the May 2003 Local Election. Their aim was also to increase turnout to 50%. Their last comparable election had produced a turnout of 38%, which, whilst already good compared to other areas, they wanted to increase further by running an all-postal ballot.

  The pilot was intended to automate the postal vote issue process. A special watermark was used on the ballot paper and the need to perforate it avoided. The need for a signed declaration of identity was also dispensed with, but electors were required to sign the return envelope. Bar coding was used, and marked copies of the lists of postal votes received was supplied to political parties in time to allow for the close of poll to be at 5.00 pm on 1 May 2003. Drop off points were provided at six regional council offices to provide an alternative to those voters not wishing to register their vote by post.

  The council found that administration of an all-postal voting ballot was simpler and more cost effective than a traditional polling station election. The relationship with Royal Mail contributed to this, as the council found it very convenient simply to hand the mailing activity over to one supplier. The council used Royal Mail's step-by-step guide and Business Response service, which provided them with advice on the design of election materials to ensure a trouble free processing through the mail. As a result, cost per vote was £1.64 per vote compared to £1.91 per vote in the last comparable election run on traditional lines.

  Promotional activity was targeted at younger voters, as turnout was already relatively high amongst the older population in this area. This awareness raising employed a range of media, including billboard and bus advertising, posters, leaflets available at local council offices, an insert in the free local newspaper and beer mats distributed to local pubs and clubs. This was supported by distribution of a postcard replacing the standard poll card using Royal Mail's Walksort mailing service for large volumes of local authority mail.

  Against their target of 50%, Herefordshire achieved a remarkable 58.3% turnout, which was the highest turnout anywhere in the country. The council was delighted with this result stating that they were "certain that it is purely because of the convenience of the postal vote" (Steve Oram, Electoral Registration Manager) and felt it was fully justified in its decision to go ahead with an all-postal voting pilot.





 
previous page contents next page

House of Commons home page Parliament home page House of Lords home page search page enquiries index

© Parliamentary copyright 2004
Prepared 8 March 2004