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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