Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill - Political and Constitutional Reform Committee Contents


Written evidence from the Electoral Commission (PVSCB 30)

  May I take this opportunity to thank you again for the opportunity to appear in front of your Committee. During the course of our oral evidence we undertook to come back to the Committee on a few issues where we could not provide detailed answers, I hope that this letter will address those outstanding questions.

DATE OF THE WALES REFERENDUM

  You asked me to discuss with my Board what recommendation we would make about potentially holding the planned referendum in Wales on 5 May 2010, alongside the scheduled elections and the proposed referendum on voting systems.

As I'm sure you have seen, the First Minister in Wales and the Secretary of State for Wales have recently announced that they intend to hold the referendum on 3 March 2010. Under the circumstances, I feel it would now be inappropriate for us to assess the merits of holding the referendum on a different date to that proposed.

FUNDING FOR ELECTORAL REGISTRATION OFFICERS

  As discussed in our evidence, the Commission has not received any representations from electoral administrators about a significant impact on their funding as a result of the cuts in public spending.

The latest (and first) analysis of the financial information that we have collected from Returning Officers and Electoral Registration Officers is enclosed for your information. Our next report will be available by the end of the year and will allow us to look more closely for any trends in the levels of funding, which we will, of course, be more than happy to share with you.

REGISTRATION LEVELS AND TURNOUT

  The Commission has not made an assessment of the link between turnout and levels of electoral registration. The absence of reliable data on registration rates at the local authority level presents a substantial challenge. The estimated registration rates for local authorities and parliamentary constituencies which are often quoted (using entries on the register and population estimates) would not be accurate enough for this purpose. Consequently, research into this subject would be complex and, to reach any meaningful conclusions, reliable data on registration levels in a substantial number of constituencies would be required so that a full study could be undertaken and, as I'm sure you can imagine, gathering this amount of data would incur significant costs.

The data the Commission has on the eight local authorities which recently served as case studies could be used as part of such an assessment, but these would not on their own be sufficient for assessing whether there is a correlation between registration and turnout. To gather sufficient data on registration levels in other local authorities ahead of the 2011 Census would be very costly and our resources are focused at present on practical attempts to drive up voter registration. I am sorry that we cannot be more helpful on this subject.

REPORT ON QUESTION ASSESSMENT

  I also wanted to take this opportunity to confirm that we will be publishing our report into the intelligibility of the proposed referendum question at 10.00 am on Thursday 30 September and we will ensure that you and your Committee members all receive a copy by e-mail at that time. We understand from House of Commons Table Office that, although not ideal, Members can table amendments during Recess (up until 4.30 pm on Thursday 7 October) that will be eligible to be debated in Day One of Committee Stage on 12 October.

We also offered to appear before the Committee in October to talk about our question assessment report in more detail and I know my office have been in contact with the Committee clerk to try to arrange this.

  I also wanted to take this opportunity to remind you, and your Committee, of the seminar that we are holding in Parliament at 1.30 pm on Tuesday 12 October where we will be setting out in more detail the Commission's role in running a referendum and answering any questions Members might have about related issues in the PVSC Bill. I know that members of your Committee have already covered this ground with us, but they may be interested to know that it is taking place.

  Finally, we have made available the links to the Commission's recent reports and papers that we referenced during our evidence session and I hope these will prove to be of use.

The paperwork surrounding the Board's decision not to oppose combination on principle:

http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/news-and-media/our-views

The 2010 report on registration research (the 8 local authorities):

http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/87111/The-completeness-and-accuracy-of-electoral-registers-in-Great-Britain.pdf

The Making Your Mark guidance:

http://www.dopolitics.org.uk/making-your-mark

27 September 2010





 
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