White Paper on Individual Electoral Registration
05 August 2011In recent years, a move to Individual Electoral Registration (IER) has been mandated. This would see a change from the current system, where one person completes a single registration form that includes everyone living at their address. In time, each would-be voter will need to complete their own personal application form. They will also have to provide supplementary information, to verify they are genuine. A similar system has already been in place in Northern Ireland for some years.
Provisions to introduce IER were included in the 2009 Political Parties and Elections Act. The Coalition Government announced in September 2010 that it intended to speed up the timetable, dropping original plans for a voluntary phase. A White Paper and draft legislation have now been published setting out more detailed plans.
The full Electoral Register is a key component in credit assessment and fraud prevention, providing independent evidence that people live where they say they do. The White Paper recognises,
"Maintaining a more accurate and complete register will deliver benefits beyond addressing the potential for fraud in elections... the full register is also supplied to credit reference agencies to assist financial institutions in the UK to verify a person's identity..."
The White Paper does not comment on the future of the Edited Register.
Key aspects of the new proposals for implementing IER include:
Timetable - The first IER forms would be sent out from July 2014, with a revised Electoral Register published by 1 December 2014. There would be a "carry over" of most existing electors, allowing them to vote in the 2015 General Election without needing to complete their IER application. After that , IER registration will be mandatory in order to exercise the right to vote.
Registering - It is intended to make it possible to register through additional channels, notably online. Registrants will be asked to provide their National Insurance Number (NINO) and Date of Birth (DOB) for verification. These will not be held on the Electoral Register. Back up processes involving paper ID would be set in place for cases where verification using NINO and DOB runs into difficulty. Importantly, it is suggested registration will be made non-mandatory, but a matter of personal choice.
Staying registered - Electors under IER will remain registered on a continuous basis until there is evidence they should not be. If they notify a change or it is decided by Electoral Registration Officers that they seem to have moved, the Register will be amended accordingly. Detecting changes will also continue to be supported by an annual canvass - at least for now.
Completeness - There are concerns that introducing IER could reduce the number of people registered, as happened when IER was introduced in Northern Ireland some years ago. A series of 'Data Matching' pilot schemes has been instituted to compare electoral registers against public databases to identify people who are not registered and should be approached, and to check accuracy.
Accuracy - Any reduction in volumes of people registered would only be an issue if the people 'lost' are genuine entries, not fraudulent or incorrect. The Electoral Commission will be funded to publish a national study of completeness and accuracy of the Register before the end of this year which will provide a 'baseline'.
Access - The Explanatory Note supports continued access to the Register on existing terms, stating that "the draft legislation does not change the current well established legislative scheme" and making reference to the Robertson case.
Separately from the White Paper, an announcement was made ( here) that plans for a Co-ordinated Online Record of Electors, which would have created a centralised Register, had been dropped. The Electoral Register will therefore continue in future to be compiled and held locally.
The White Paper and draft legislation can be found here. Comments and views are invited before Friday 14 October 2011. The draft Bill will then proceed through the legislative process.
The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee is examining the proposals independently and has issued a Call for Evidence here which closes earlier, on 2 September 2011.
As the White Paper points out, observers of UK elections have highlighted concerns about the registration system for some years. There has been real criticism of security around electoral registration processes and hence the ability to commit electoral fraud. The general concept of IER has therefore received consistent cross party support, and backing from the Electoral Commission.
The increase in confidence in Electoral Register entries is likely to be widely welcomed by financial services providers. The verification of electors can only further augment the value of the electoral roll as a factor in anti-money laundering and credit assessment. This may prompt shifts in scoring values of related characteristics in time following implementation, requiring scorecard adjustments.
There are concerns that some individuals may be 'put off' registering because of the need to provide information. Making registration non-mandatory could exacerbate this. Indeed, under the current system, many people never register themselves, but can rely on others in their household to do it for them. The Government has recognised the potential for registration rates to fall and has already set in place some plans to help address this through the data matching pilots and creating more channels to register.
Research by the Electoral Commission in 2010 found that the prevention of financial and identity fraud benefits of being on the Electoral Register resonated strongly, especially with younger people. We can expect this message to be widely leveraged as part of publicity to encourage registration under IER. Nonetheless, lenders whose applicant base tends to a high proportion of 'thin file' or relatively transient people could eventually see some effect on accept rates in the longer term which might in turn prompt process changes.
