Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
25 JANUARY 2005
MR SAM
YOUNGER AND
MS PAMELA
GORDON
Q20 Dr Whitehead: The individual identifiers
would arise after the registration process had taken place presumably
and the question of possible fraud and identity theft would arise
at the point of individual registration I assume.
Ms Gordon: A fraud in registering,
yes.
Q21 Sir Paul Beresford: Presumably some
of the potential identifications, such as the National Insurance
number would not work for the individuals who come from Commonwealth
countries and have a reciprocal right to vote.
Mr Younger: I guess that is right.
What we have done up to now is thought in terms of the principle
and what we are trying to achieve by it. In the practical implementation
we put forward some thoughts, but are in discussion with government
and others as to exactly what those should be in order to make
sure we get a system that works within the context of those who
are eligible to be on the register and to vote in this country.
Q22 Dr Whitehead: You mentioned the possibility
in your evidence of the fact that, as far as household registration
is concerned, it is possible obviously for the head of household
filling the form in, either by accident or design, to omit household
members or indeed add other household members. What evidence do
you have of what level of inaccuracy there is and do you consider
that with individual registration that particular issue of deliberate
or accidental inaccuracy would be resolved?
Mr Younger: We have anecdotal
evidence rather than exhaustively researched evidence that there
are some levels of inaccuracy in the register. I do not think
our evidence would suggest that the vast majority of these are
other than mistakes, whether it is somebody putting on somebody
who is not the right age, whether it is somebody who is of a nationality
that does not have the right to vote. People getting forms through
the door may return them because they are good citizens and if
they are sent an official form they return it duly signed. The
chances are, we would suggest, that if you do have individual
registration, and each individual has to identify himself and
make a signature, you are in the end going to get a more accurate
register. The question is, and I think this is one of the key
issues, whether it would be a more complete register. There, there
would an awful lot of work to be done to make sure, which is exactly
the issue at the heart of this, that, if you do move to a different
system of registration, you maintain the maximum number of those
entitled to vote on that register.
Q23 Chairman: The dog getting a polling
card or the three-year-old getting a polling card appears to be
fairly rare, so that it is a story for the local paper, is it
not? If it were commonplace, it would not be a story.
Ms Gordon: I am glad to say that
it is fairly rare, but I also have to say that it derives from
the dog or whoever being entered onto the return.
Q24 Chairman: It is normal that the returning
officer is blamed for it, whereas it should really be the householder.
Ms Gordon: Yes.
Q25 Mr O'Brien: May I press you on the
implementation of the individual registration? In your written
evidence, you have advised that a possible staged approach might
include reducing the frequency of annual canvass. What plans have
you developed for a phased approach to the implementation of individual
registration? Over what period of time do you envisage this being
introduced?
Mr Younger: As we mentioned before,
we have not really pinned this down. There is a recognition, particularly
looking at the experience of Northern Ireland and perhaps one
would even have reached this conclusion without the experience
of Northern Ireland, that a significant change to the system is
one that you need to be very careful about, if you are not going
to lose people off the register. Certainly much of the discussion
of those who have been sceptical has been a very genuine worry,
particularly parents who say "I fill in the form for my household
and I put my 20-year-old and my 19-year-old on it as well as my
wife and myself and I am afraid that if I did not do it, they
would not get on". We have to deal with that, because that
is very real. Making a staged approach, so that, whatever register
we have at the time we move to individual registration, we do
not, as it were, dump it overnight, but have a period of maybe
two, maybe three years where you do not push people off the register
who were on it before individual registration, has to be allied
with a good deal more work on targeted campaigns to get people
to be on the register. We have done a fair amount on this and
it is interesting to note, and it is buried there somewhere in
the evidence, that some of the areas which are the most successful
are when you can really target, such as using the Royal Mail redirection
service to target people who have moved house. Over the last six
or eight months, that has brought 50,000-odd new registrations
which we can source to that because of the means that we use to
make the registration. There, we need to be a lot more sophisticated
and in part, if one did move over time away from putting whatever
resource is available overwhelmingly in a repeat annual canvass
every year, but were more targeted about it with a full canvass
less frequently than every year, perhaps every two, maybe every
three, then one could have a real impact on that.
Q26 Adrian Sanders: The principle here
is about the largest number of people being on a register. Now
people move, and you give the example of using the redirection
service, but when people move, even if they move out of area or
within area, they are still on the register so they still have
a vote, it is just the inconvenience of having to return or fix
up a postal vote. Under the system of individual registration,
they presumably would not still have that vote if they moved and
did not then register in their new address.
Mr Younger: In theory that is
possible and indeed may happen. That is part of the reason to
think in terms of the carryover: that you pick up people who are
moving house, you try to get them onto the register in the new
place and take them off in the old. I think there are cases when
somebody is known to have moved out of an area, where electoral
registration officers (EROs), after a time, may take people off
the register anyway. The problem is not non-existent now, but
we have to be careful with individual registration. There, in
a sense, the issue is not necessarily any different under individual
registration. That depends on the length of the carryover; even
now when people move house, they stay on the register until the
period of carryover is finished.
Q27 Adrian Sanders: Some of the more
transient groups are the people who do not have secure housing
or are the very hard to reach groups at the moment.
Mr Younger: Yes, indeed. I think
it is the case, depending on what the rules would be, that if
they are once on the register in the first place, they are no
less likely to remain on the register under individual registration
than they are under household. The question is, once somebody
is on the register, over what period you take them off if they
have not re-registered. This in a sense is part of the experience
of Northern Ireland that is worried about losing people you should
not be losing if you force them off the register if they do not
re-register that immediate following year and looking at doing
that over a longer period, which is what the government has expressed
the intention of doing now.
Q28 Mr O'Brien: In the transition period
to which we referred, how would you approach the question of accuracy
and coverage of the register? How would you address the problems
which could develop from people having different views as to how
they should register, like a parent registering or pressing their
children to register? Do you envisage any other problems and how
would you deal with them?
Mr Younger: In moving from any
system that has been there for many years to any sort of new system,
you have to recognise that there will be problems and there certainly
will be and there will certainly be people who might have been
registered by a parent or other member of the family who will
not immediately be registered. That is a matter above all of (a)
the staged process but (b) the targeting of campaigns to encourage
people to get on the register. That is what the key to it is and
in saying all of that, I certainly would not want to minimise
some of the problems that there might be. The pluses of individual
registration are real and are worth achieving, but we need to
make sure we are pragmatic enough to look at making sure that
we do that—
Q29 Mr O'Brien: What problems have you
witnessed with the Northern Ireland procedure?
Mr Younger: The problems with
the Northern Ireland procedure have been that there have been
quite significant numbers of people lost off the register, not
just in year one, but then some more, a more modest number, in
year two. There the problem has been traced first, which we would
not run into if we applied this system within the rest of Great
Britain, to knocking people off the register if they have not
re-registered after year one. Also there are people who do not
want to go through giving their details endlessly to authority
of one kind or another. There are various reasons people might
not give their details: whether because they are transient, whether
because they have a reluctance to put into any official form,
a National Insurance number, or a date of birth or whatever it
is, whether in the context of Northern Ireland with rolling registration
you are actually being asked to go to a hearing, which is not
something that happens—
Q30 Mr O'Brien: So you are still dealing
with some of the problems in Northern Ireland are you?
Mr Younger: We have an interest
in it. Clearly the responsibility for registration in Northern
Ireland rests with the Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland.
We support that office in terms of publicity and registration
campaigns to get people to understand the requirements and to
register.
Q31 Mr O'Brien: In your report of 2003,
The Electoral Registration Process, you recommended the
retention of annual canvass as an interim measure. What should
replace it and on what timescale?
Mr Younger: When we did that report,
one possibility we did have in mind was to say perhaps we did
not need the annual canvass, perhaps it should be every two years,
every three years, we had not defined a particular amount of time,
and use the resource, say, as I have mentioned before, to target
registration campaigns at harder-to-reach groups. In fact it was
in discussions and feedback from the political parties that there
was an anxiety at that stage about moving away from the annual
canvass and we felt that we had not sufficiently thought through
how that might be done to recommend dispensing with the annual
canvass just like that. Increasingly, and looking at the experience
of Northern Ireland, there is a good case for re-orienting the
kind of resources that you use and actually only doing a full
canvass on a less regular basis than every year and using that
resource to target your—
Q32 Chairman: Why do you have to do it
less frequently than every year? Is there not a logic in not doing
it at all and simply concentrating all the effort on the people
who move? I have lived in the same house for 25 years and have
filled in the form for 24 of them, as a pretty pointless exercise,
have I not?
Ms Gordon: In our report we did
indicate that there could well be an argument for some flexibility
on a local basis. The average movement, as I understand it, of
households last year was 13% across the whole of the country and
that varies enormously between people like the Chairman who have
stayed for a long time in one house and inner city areas where
there is considerable movement. I think individual registration
officers would wish to take a very different approach, depending
on their local circumstances. There are also very particular circumstances
about the considerable areas where there are large numbers of
students, where obviously there is already a big problem of registration
which, if anything, is being compounded, we understand again from
anecdotal evidence, because of wardens of halls of residence and
so on being unhappy about having to register students individually
on a composite return because of human rights issues. So there
are already in the current system a number of problems which will
need to be addressed which could be addressed through the proposals
that we are making.
Q33 Mr Beith: You are looking at this
from the standpoint of getting people onto the register, but what
is there, as an alternative to the national canvass, for stopping
people being on the register who should not be on the register?
We were reminded us in a memorandum of evidence that a national
newspaper registered somebody called Mr Gus Troobev, which is
an anagram for bogus voter, in 31 constituencies; his name actually
appeared on the electoral register in 31 constituencies, even
though he was an entirely bogus character. What alternative is
there to the annual canvass to vet these things?
Mr Younger: There are two or three
possibilities. One, if you once moved to a system where there
are more individual identifiers, you are less likely to have those
kind of bogus registrations; less, but it is not out of the question.
Secondly, we have also made a proposition in that earlier report
which said there should be a right for and indeed an obligation
on electoral registration officers themselves to challenge and
follow up registrations which they think might be bogus. It is
not there at the moment, it is on receipt of an objection from
somewhere else that they act and I think there is a case for a
much more proactive role for registration officers on the register.
The third element is probably the answer to the question of whether
you need an annual canvass at all. A periodic canvass, that is
a full canvass, that tries to make sure you update, clean up the
register, is something that there should be. I very much also
take the Chairman's point that there is a very high percentage
of those in the annual canvass which is simply a repeat of exactly
the same details that were given a year before.
Q34 Mr O'Brien: Do you think a targeted
audit procedure would be better, replacing the existing system?
Mr Younger: My sense would be
that any auditing system would probably include a periodic complete
audit. The issue would be what period would be the right one:
whether it would be two years, three years, whether it might be
once in every electoral cycle which is likely to be every four
to five years. I think that would be part of it. I think the other
is the targeting, particularly at making sure that those under-registered
groups are on. One point I think we need to be careful of there,
one of the reasons historically why individual local authorities
have been reluctant to get involved in a great deal of targeted
canvassing for people on the register, is a fear of getting pulled
into what could become political issues in terms of where that
targeting is and how you carry it out. One needs to recognise
that. Given the position local authorities can be in, in terms
of understanding the people in their patch, there is a case in
a coherent and thought-through way to have more targeted registration
campaigning.
Q35 Mr O'Brien: The current electoral
register is based on addresses grouped in parliamentary constituencies.
What would be the basis for the register formed from individual
registrations?
Mr Younger: Initially, though
obviously if the system were to be changed then there is a chance
to review everything, I would not necessarily think there was
any reason to change the unit of account; there is no need for
that. One of the enablers of individual registration, particularly
once you have individual identifiers and particularly, which we
have not mentioned yet, once you have a register which is electronically
maintained to common standards and which can be interrogated,
is that you have a possibility then of people, for example, being
able to vote outside of a particular polling station, because
you have a linked-up system. That is actually a little bit further
down the road, but I do not think there is an immediate reason
why moving from one basis of registration to another would change
the geographical unit on which you would need to base a register.
Q36 Mr O'Brien: Finally, may I just press
you on the constituency size and combination? This is an issue
that you and I discussed a few months ago. Would it be possible
under individual registration to base constituency sizes on the
combination of census and electoral registration figures, rather
than electoral figures alone? Taking the census into consideration.
Mr Younger: I would need notice
to answer that question at all coherently. As I understand it,
the basis on which parliamentary constituency boundaries are done
is set out in legislation and there is obviously a case after
a cycle of looking at the legislation. Perhaps one other thing—
Q37 Chairman: Wait a minute; come on.
This is fairly fundamental to this inquiry, is it not? There is
a bit of panic from some members of parliament, that if you went
to individual registration and you got under-representation, you
could end up with a constituency which allegedly had 70,000 people
on the register, but in practice there were 80,000 adults. Your
case work might well go up considerably and over a period of time
it would skew the political representation in here, would it not,
because there is a fair chance that the under-representation might
be people who in the end will vote for one particular political
party. Surely you ought to have some view as to whether, if you
went for individual registration, we would need to look at a different
way of measuring the size of constituencies, perhaps combining
registration and census figures; not that they have got it right
particularly recently.
Mr Younger: It is a very legitimate
point, but it is not one that I have a particular answer to, because
the parliamentary process is separate. Clearly there is a link,
as the register is developed, to make sure that we finish up with
constituencies which are on the fairest possible basis.
Q38 Mr O'Brien: This was one of the points
I raised with you when we were looking at constituency changes.
There is evidence to show that in many constituencies, taking
into consideration the 2003 register of electors, it has identified
that those figures for the electorate are 10% below the census
figures for people over 18. Now surely that is the kind of evidence
that we should be looking at to make sure that the constituency
boundaries are based on a more fair and open system than just
on the electoral system. Do you not agree?
Mr Younger: You make a strong
point. It is not something we have looked at in the context of
this and of course we do not have any responsibilities in the
areas of parliamentary boundaries; that is something very much
to look to for the future and it is not directly linked to individual
versus household registration. In a sense it may be that if it
were the case that the scale of under-registration of people who
should be on the register would be significant if you moved to
individual registration, then we have in practical terms to look
at whether we have it right and whether that is the right system
to go to. That said, I think there clearly is an issue of making
sure that we have parliamentary constituency boundaries which
are fair and coherent. But that is for the future.
Q39 Mr Clelland: What about the poor
old electoral registration officers in all of this? Have you done
any research into what assistance they might require in order
to ensure best coverage of the register? Do you have any recommendations
on levels of reminders and checking of returns?
Ms Gordon: We would want to work
through the details of any proposal that was agreed by government,
very much involving the electoral registration officers. They
have given us a lot of observations so far, because obviously
it is their practical experience that we are depending on. We
are on record as regarding the registration service historically
as having been a Cinderella service of local government and they
do need greater resources to carry forward some of these additional
burdens that are being laid on them with individual registration,
as there have been with other developments in elections. So there
would be a resource implication, but it would be largely a transitional
one, as would be the case in introducing any new system. The other
dimension of this, which we would regard as important from the
local authority point of view, from the returning officer's responsibility,
would be to carry out wider local public awareness campaigns alongside
what the Commission does at a national level. That is particularly
relevant where there are local circumstances and particularly
hard-to-reach groups in a locality. This, again, is an issue we
have drawn attention to because not all returning officers or
registration officers are comfortable with the idea of mounting
such campaigns. We should like greater clarity as to their ability
to do this.
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