Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-139)
9 MARCH 2004
COUNCILLOR SIR
JEREMY BEECHAM,
MR MICHAEL
GREEN AND
MR TIM
RICKETTS
Q120 Mr Cummings: Do you see delivery
points being more expensive in certain parishes?
Mr Green: Good democracy is expensive.
At the end of the day if what you are trying to do is engage more
people in the democratic process then other than a disproportionate
cost, like giving everybody the ability to e-vote with a hand-held
the costs that you accrue from having a vote with an appropriate
number of delivery points/polling stations on the big day is proportionate
and it is something that in the end if the proposal from Electoral
Commission for the general part is to be taken forward would reflect
well on this country and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
understanding the importance of accessibility and the ability
to vote.
Q121 Mr Sanders: Are local authorities
satisfied that secrecy and security can be maintained during the
all-postal election?
Cllr Sir Jeremy Beecham: We do
not see a particular problem with this. We feel that not requiring
a witnessed signature may help the secrecy point since it is no
longer required to have somebody there by definition who might
see how the individual votes. In Newcastle we have dispensed with
the witness signature, that is of course in the Electoral Commission's
recommendations. We do not think there is a particular problem
and there is no evidence that it has caused a particular problem.
In any event, as I was saying, the proportion of postal votes
on a voluntary basis was rising to a significant extent anyway
again without any evidence of any difficulty.
Q122 Mr Sanders: Many of the submissions
which have been received have highlighted a number of concerns
about local issues and matters that are sub judice and
together they could add up to a catalogue of problems and the
problem here is whilst everyone wants to increase turnout if at
the same time you are reducing public perception and credibility
within the system what is actually more important is a fair and
obviously proper democracy ballot or lots of people voting?
Cllr Sir Jeremy Beecham: Both
are crucial.
Q123 Mr Sanders: Both are crucial, surely
one is far more important than the other? Surely a fair ballot
is far more important?
Cllr Sir Jeremy Beecham: I think
the two things are interconnected. I think it is important to
have a high turnout and that must depend on a robust and secure
system.
Q124 Mr Sanders: Surely it is more important
that the system has integrity than the level of turnout?
Cllr Sir Jeremy Beecham: I regard
that as a condition of the high turnout. You have obviously received
submissions which reflect concerns. It would be true to say there
have been concerns under the previous system. I can enlarge on
the history in Northern Ireland about electoral malpractice but
even in England there have been problems around residential establishments,
and the like, and problems with nomination, and so on. The system
is always going to be tested by a tiny minority of people who
may wish to subvert it. The Commission and the authorities have
found no evidence of any greater problems under the pilots than
existed outside and before the pilots.
Q125 Chairman: Do you think the police
and the Crown Prosecution Service take alleged electoral fraud
seriously enough?
Cllr Sir Jeremy Beecham: That
is questionable. It is also questionable whether authorities take
the question of registration seriously enough, failure to register
is an offence as well and there are very few prosecutions for
that.
Q126 Chairman: Are you recommending more
to your members?
Cllr Sir Jeremy Beecham: Yes,
actually. Personally I am not sure how popular this would be but
I have made that recommendation. If I might illustrate it and
put in this document, this is a leaflet we distributed in the
by-election I referred to and its make it very clear that it is
an offence to use a ballot paper that is not addressed to you
and warns people about prison sentences. We need that kind of
publicity and we need to make it clear to people there will be
some checking of the kind I described that took place in Newcastle
last year, we certainly need to make those things clear. Where
there is any misconduct of course that must be pursued relentlessly.
Q127 Christine Russell: What steps are
you aware that your members are intending to take or have indeed
taken in trials for people who have disabilities that may prove
problematical, like visual impairment for instance?
Cllr Sir Jeremy Beecham: The literature
we have distributed in Newcastle, and I think this is true of
other pilots, made clear that if people required ballot papers
in Braille then contact could be made.
Q128 Chairman: How do you know that is
going to be available in Braille if you cannot read?
Cllr Sir Jeremy Beecham: People
who are visually handicapped will receive ordinary correspondence
as a matter of course and most of it will be written or printed
material presumably they will have some help in dealing with that.
Q129 Christine Russell: Will you be telling
your members to work with groups like RNIB?
Cllr Sir Jeremy Beecham: Absolutely.
For physically handicapped people postal voting is going to be,
generally speaking, easier to facilitate than an appearance or
attendance at a polling station.
Q130 Christine Russell: Have you had
any representations from any groups, because we have had some
evidence, quite surprisingly, from groups representing people
with disabilities saying that voters should still have a choice
as to whether they go in person or whether they have a proxy vote
or a postal vote, have you received any similar representations?
Cllr Sir Jeremy Beecham: I am
not aware of any significant representations to that effect. There
are people who have affection for the current system but I do
not know if they are defined by disability.
Q131 Mr Clelland: Michael Green referred
earlier to the cost of an election and had some suggestions as
to how they might be financed in future, in terms of the elections
coming up are local authorities having to face any particular
difficulty in financing the postal ballots?
Cllr Sir Jeremy Beecham: They
will be more expensive in gross terms, the unit terms will fall
somewhat. We are looking in a number of boroughs in Tyneside at
electoral counting which will be more expensive but more efficient
as well and we are prepared to run with that. I think the point
that Michael has made about the costs being underwritten would
be sensible.
Q132 Mr Clelland: That is not likely
to happen for these elections, is it?
Cllr Sir Jeremy Beecham: Not on
the face it of, no. In the North-East certainly all of the local
authorities agree that we want this system and we are prepared
to deal with the costs.
Q133 Mr Clelland: Given the point made
by Michael Green about what lengths some local authorities would
go to to try and keep costs down is there any danger that security
might be compromised?
Cllr Sir Jeremy Beecham: I do
not think so. I think the good practice regulations will take
care of that.
Q134 Mr Clelland: What about parish councils,
how difficult will it be for them to come up with their costs?
Cllr Sir Jeremy Beecham: That
is another matter. It may be that the election style which he
referred to will bear the cost in some cases.
Mr Green: Given that the figures
have been used today by previous witnesses it tends to show that
the difference in costs between the traditional elections or postal
elections is somewhere in the region of 10%, clearly it is sensible
for those councils that consistently know they will be recharged
and there will be areas where there will be postal voting to factor
that in in terms of their finances? However, and can I make a
point, things tie in together and you have recently had another
recommendation from the Electoral Commission on the cycle of elections
and it clearly should be the case that if the cycle of election
proposals are to be accepted by the Deputy Prime Minister then
the proposals in the central pot for the funding of elections
need to be accepted in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
at the same time. We would be slightly astonished if in the 2007
local government elections, which will be where the majority of
the procedures will happen, there is cycle of elections but there
is no central pot for the administration costs.
Chairman: That is pretty good hint for
our questions when we see the Department.
Mr Brady: Are you able to give any estimate
what the further additional costs would be if the Electoral Commission
on an individual basis of registration and checking of signatures
were to be put in place?
Cllr Sir Jeremy Beecham: I do
not know that we have an estimate of that. We support individual
registration, it would be an additional way of securing the process.
Q135 Chris Mole: The Association of Electoral
Administration highlight concerns over the farming of votes, as
they call it, Sir Jeremy do you believe that the political parties
have the capacity to interfere with the voting process in that
way?
Cllr Sir Jeremy Beecham: I am
not sure how much capacity we have full stop. I do not think that
is likely to happen in any event. I would not expect a responsible
political party to engage in those practices. There must always
be a risk, as there always was, of malpractice. If I can just
say this, there are some concerns not necessarily about parties
but about other organisations, in one case a London borough suggested
that everyone brought their votes to a religious organisation,
a Christian organisation, and cast their votes together. That
should be discouraged.
Q136 Chris Mole: Moving to people who
receive the ballot papers forward, are there practical difficulties?
Is there a question of change of culture?
Cllr Sir Jeremy Beecham: There
are practical difficulties and I have suggested and the Association
has suggested that one thing which needs to concern us for the
future is the date of local elections. Given that the timetable
becomes elongated for elections the prospect of knocking on doors
in the freezing, dark March nights is somewhat less appealing
than doing it a bit later when the clocks go forward and therefore
a June election makes it more comfortable for the canvassers and
canvassed. We will be recommending that to the Commission and
we have asked the Commission to look at the date for local elections
in the light of that.
Q137 Chris Mole: Mori suggested that
people are uncomfortable with a marked copy of the register on
a daily basis, whereas with postal voting it means that you do
not necessarily see who has voted, because people have a worry
about whether a political party should or should not know how
they have voted or not, do you think there is a job to be done
in educating people that by providing that information they are
protecting themselves from the unwanted attentions of political
parties for several weeks in a row?
Cllr Sir Jeremy Beecham: Most
people's experience, obviously the experience of members of this
committee, is that people are very happy at their polling station
to give you their number, very few decline to give you their number,
fewer do that than refuse to identify their political preference
when you canvas them. I do not think in principle there would
be a vast objection, people do not seem to realise under the present
system you could in theory trace how people have voted, people
are not aware of that, a bit more education generally would not
go amiss
Q138 Chris Mole: Should we give people
the option to opt out?
Cllr Sir Jeremy Beecham: I think
that would be difficult to administer.
Q139 Chairman: On this question of timetable,
in the North East your election is going to finish a week earlier
than the rest of the country that is not part of the highlands,
how is that going to affect political broadcast?
Cllr Sir Jeremy Beecham: Marginally
fewer people will watch than would otherwise be the case. It would
be difficult to determine how few.
| 
