Memorandum by Harry Barnes MP (VOT 35)
Thank you for your letter of 21 November inviting
me to make a submission to the joint inquiry into Electoral Registration.
I give my observations below:
1. A Full Franchise. I feel that
it is essential in a democratic: society to move as close as we
can to the 100% registration of those entitled to vote.
If significant numbers of otherwise qualified
people are excluded from voting by under-registration, not only
is there a likely distortion of the results, but their possible
abstentions aren't even assessed in the results. We don't then
obtain a proper picture of percentage turnouts. And the degree
of inconvenience and apathy which causes numbers of people to
fail to register, may have a similar impact on this groups likelihood
not to exercise their franchise if registered. Yet we need to
know the full extent of non-voting.
Numbers of people are, however, frustrated
when they discover, too late, that they have lost their voting
rights for a specific election, through non-registration. The
current provisions for rolling registration have only imperfectly
tackled this problem, for it is a relatively slow moving and voluntary
system. Later, (in 3) I will suggest means of improving the rolling
registration arrangements, along with other methods of ensuring
a much fuller franchise (in 2).
The research that your enquiry will be
pursuing and examining on the extent and areas of non—registration
is likely to confirm that there are three main groups who are
affected. (i) First, there are wide groups of rootless and mobile
people in modern society, including those who move their residence
regularly from bedsitter to bedsitter. (ii) Secondly, there are
socially deprived groups which are significant in communities
of ethnic minorities and where there are high unemployment levels—including
those regularly moving in and out of poorly paid jobs. (iii) Finally,
there is significant under-registration amongst attainers and
other young people who haven't appeared on past electoral registers.
Numbers of people will, of course, fall into more than one of
the above categories.
As high degrees of under-registration are
by no means distributed evenly throughout society on a geographical
basis, its impact seriously distorts the drawing of electoral
boundaries, with areas of need losing out. The Boundary Commission
should be encouraged to give this serious weight, until such time
as much fuller franchises have been obtained.
2. Registration Requirements. To
facilitate full, correct and up-to-date electoral registration,
we need to pursue a number of radical measures.
At the moment registration is compulsory
in theory, but fairly voluntary in practise. This doesn't, however,
mean that we should just recognise the current reality and change
the registration system to one that is voluntary in legal terms.
The objective should be full registration, which requires a combination
of compulsion and facilitation. The rights of the individual are
best protected ii this area by rejecting the notion of compulsory
voting. Effective and obligatory registration gives the individual
the right to exercise their electoral preferences, or their non-preferences.
The latter by abstention.
To ensure full registration, we can't just
rely upon penalties for non-registration, even if we moved to
stiffer penalties and had some well publicised prosecutions. We
need a pro-active response from electoral registration officers
to trace and register those qualified to vote. Whilst imaginative
publicity campaigns can help, regular canvassing exercises by
electoral registration officers is essential. Yet practices vary
in the United Kingdom, with the best practice on canvassing taking
place in the special circumstances of Northern Ireland.
For electoral registration officers to
complete the above roles, they require proper funding to undertake
these essential duties. This raises the question of whether a
centrally funded national electoral registration system should
be put in place.
The need for a national electoral registration
system will also emerge from points I make below for a radicalised
and much more effective system of rolling electoral registration.
However, a co-ordinated national provision would need to be built
on sound foundations. The experience of the establishment of the
national Electoral Commission should be born in mind. It is sometimes
given to a modernisation fetish in looking for fancy franchises
and fancy voting procedures using up-to-date technology, rather
than building on established and firm foundations. We don't want
a national agency on electoral registration which ends up operating
as a fairly inept organisation on the lines of the Child Support
Agency.
Until we have a much more effective set
of arrangements in place to achieve better registration, we should
be careful about moving away from the current system of household
registration to a form of individual registration. The move to
individual registration in Northern Ireland has led to problems
which require careful assessment. The position in Northern Ireland
was, however, complicated by the need to stamp out previous widespread
fraudulent registrations. But the cleaning-up of the registration
system in the Province, may also have led to a significant reduction
in the numbers of genuine registrations.
Electoral Registers should only be used
for electoral purposes. The current arrangement place people in
a quandary, if they refuse to make their details available for
the commercial sale of the publicly available version of the register,
they may be refused credit facilities for no more substantial
a reason than that they ticked a box refusing their details to
be made openly available.
3. Rolling Registration. The system
of rolling registration introduced in the Representation of the
Peoples Act 2000 enables people to transfer their registration
when they move their residence. It was a much needed development
which should now be built upon.
The current system of rolling registration
essentially leaves it up to the individual to transfer their registration.
When someone moves to a new home, electoral registration isn't
often likely to be a major item on their agenda. Electoral Registration
Officers, therefore, need to act in a more pro-active way in order
to ensure that the transfer takes place as soon as is practical
after someone has moved. Records of the changes of address are
available to numbers of government agencies, local authorities
and other bodies linked in with public provisions. This information
should be collated and pursued for electoral registration purposes.
The time at which many people become aware
that their registration hasn't been transferred or that they have
just missed out altogether on registration is when a relevant
election is announced. It is then, often too late for them to
achieve the required registration. This problem can be tackled
by allowing late registration for those qualifying at the time
of the official announcement of an election. This could be facilitated
by the immediate issuing of Polling Card (and a new non—Polling
Card) to people's homes. The card could ask people to check the
names it listed to ensure that everyone in a house who qualified
to vote was covered. The non-Polling Card would go to homes where
no one was registered, alerting them to the fact. Both sets of
cards would explain the time-table for late registration and the
qualification arrangements. The qualifying date is intended to
block people from being moved into an area to distort the results.
Given the above rolling registration arrangements
people could be registered only on their sole or main place of
residence, ending any need for multiple registration on different
registers.
4. Qualification to Register. Electoral,
registration should be available for those who are subject to
the full range of legislation and taxation in a nation. This has
two consequences.
It reduces the case for overseas voting
by British Citizens settled in other Nations. It is the country
they settle in which should provide them with voting rights. The
longer a person is settled overseas, the less they are impacted
upon by the details of the United Kingdom's legislative framework.
There is also an uncomfortable fit between a compulsory home registration
requirement and a voluntary overseas one. This conflict should
be resolved in the interests of the vast majority—domestic
voters.
Residents in this Country from whatever
nation they came from, should be able to qualify for electoral
registration. This should not be limited to citizens of the Commonwealth
and the Irish Republic. To meet with the principles at the opening
of this section, all such residents should be legally obliged
to register.
Nor is there a case for excluding those
in prison from appearing on registers. They can be registered
in the area where they reside prior to serving their prison sentence.
They should have the right to vote over the laws of the land,
but to serve out the consequences of breaking those laws.
5. Voting Age and Identity Cards. In
the long run a full and obligatory Identity Card system could
give a considerable boost to full electoral registration. If we
had the above type of Identity Card system, then full registration
could come to be established by reducing the age for initially
voting to 16. With young people approaching 16 registering for
both their Identity Cards and franchise rights whilst at school.
The Identity Card system could then be used to ensure that they
automatically achieved rolling registration rights when they moved
addresses later in life.
6. Caution. The points I make about
Identity Cards need to be long term objectives, which are impractical
to move upon immediately. The same cautious approach seems to
me to be required in (a) contemplation of household registration
methods, (b) electronic registration systems, (c) the employment
of PIN numbers, electoral voting cards and signatures (outside
of Northern Ireland current arrangements, or only as a build up
to the provisions proposed in section 5 above), and (d) any move
to the use of NI numbers or date of birth (NT numbers being unreliable
on a national basis and await a proper Identity Card system).
7. Disabled People and Registration.
The introduction of individual registration would add to the
difficulties of disabled people registering. However, disabled
people face a greater difficulty in exercising their franchise
on the same basis as able bodied people. They shouldn't be pressed
into using postal or proxy ballot, nor electronic systems. They
need proper access to Polling Stations. Valuable work has been
done in showing this need by SCOPE.
Harry Barnes MP
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