A few constituents have written to me expressing concern about the introduction on Individual Voter Registration. Let me try and reassure them.
The aim is to complete the transition to Individual electoral registration by the end of this year. As the Association of Electoral Administrators has said, this is the best way to create an accurate register.
As the Minister has stated, under the old system the “head of the household” could register anybody living in a property with no identification needed. Most heads of households did so diligently and honestly, but it was possible for heads of households to provide false information, either by mistake as they were not fully aware of the future living arrangements or eligibility of people staying with them, or because they made a fraudulent declaration.
Under Individual Registration each person is responsible for their own registration, at the address where they are living. They need to supply a date of birth and an NI number which is used to check the applicant. During the transition from the old system to the new one, some 96 out of every hundred voters on the old register have transferred successfully. The remaining four out of 100 have not responded. They may be real voters, or former voters who have died, or voters who have moved and registered elsewhere, or they could be fraudulent registrations. Councils are actively seeking to contact them to clarify and make sure that all genuine voters are registered.
The Minister assures us that by the end of the process there will be at least nine attempts to contact each voter who has not qualified under the new system, including two personal visits. The chances by the end of the process of any genuine voter being off the register are “vanishingly” small. If anyone is concerned that they or a neighbour or friend has been left off they should get them to contact voter registration as soon as possible.
It must be right to have a more accurate register. It is surely high time individuals made their own arrangements for their vote, as they are the best judges of their eligibility and best placed to establish their own entitlement.
November 11, 2015
It would help if there was a simple way to check online that you are registered. This doesn’t appear to be the case and I can’t think of a good reason why not.
November 11, 2015
I’d oppose this idea. We’ve opted to be on the restricted register which is not sold commercially, but putting the information on-line would be another opportunity for hackers and commercial organisations to get hold of it.
November 11, 2015
The Australians manage to do it. Also the Canadians.
November 11, 2015
Good point, JJE – at the moment people are left wondering whether their application to register has been successful.
There are questions to what extent the present registration process can prove that the applicant is who he or she says they are. DVLA say it falls below the level they require for their (different) purposes, https://dvladigital.blog.gov.uk/2014/06/26/the-view-driving-record-experience/
The Speaker of the House of Commons and Martha Lane Fox take it as axiomatic that now that we have electronic registration to vote we should also have electronic voting. That doesn’t follow. The danger is that the result of elections could be determined by the party with the best hackers, and not by the voters.
November 11, 2015
Indeed it is a good plan and will reduce voter fraud. They should also restrict postal votes to exceptional circumstances.
November 11, 2015
Lifelogic
Agreed.
At the moment it would seem that if you have registered once for a postal vote, they assume you require that method of voting from then on into the future.
Surely it would be better to have to request a postal vote each time you need it, given the suggestion of past fraud.
November 11, 2015
It is extraordinary that the Labour Party are opposing this. They must really feel they have benefitted in the past from non-existent voters!
I hope postal voting can be made to work, though it has clearly been extensively abused. Anyone who travels a lot for work needs to use postal votes as you can’t guarantee to be at home on election days.
November 11, 2015
Sounds good. Anyone complained yet about the cultural insensitivity of requiring this format of registration in certain communities where traditionally the head of the household blah blah blah ?
November 11, 2015
It’s perfectly possible to be here legally and entitled to vote but not have a national insurance number. Using NI number for things like this is a mistake. And where I am registered no forms for this have arrived.
November 11, 2015
Quite. The NI number is not really appropriate to use. If we had a mandatory national identity card this and many other issues would be cleared up immediately.
November 12, 2015
Not really.
The aborted attempt at introducing a national ID card by the last labour government was a massive waste of billions of quid, and was a nightmare of a system. With few of the benefits people imagine.
But the national insurance system, the IT, and business processes, is already a massive shambles. Lots of national insurance payments never get credited to the correct person or often indeed anyone, billions of quid go missing. Lots of botches have happened along the way including issuing duplicate numbers to multiple people, which make using the number for purposes like this a nonsense. And lots of people have NI numbers who are not entitled to be in this country, and lots of people don’t have NI numbers who are entitled to be here. So all in all this whole idea sounds like the usual shambles concocted by politicians and their policy wonks who have no idea how flaky the systems behind the scenes are.
Reply As we already have an NI system it should be easier and cheaper to fix that than to introduce an ID card for all which could also be subject to fraud
November 12, 2015
If you’re going to fix it I would humbly suggest fixing it so that it works for its intended purpose before hanging lots of additional responsibility on it.
November 11, 2015
Thank you for that. We have to make sure that the Tower Hamlets swindle never – ever – happens again in this country.
November 11, 2015
What on Earth is John Major on about?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/11987196/Sir-John-Major-The-Government-alone-cannot-end-inequality.html?WT.mc_id=e_DM61546&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi_FAM_New&utm_source=email&utm_medium=Edi_FAM_New_2015_11_11&utm_campaign=DM61546
“Twenty-five years ago, at the door of No 10 Downing Street, I set out my ambition for “a nation at ease with itself”. At the heart of this was my wish to tackle inequality. That day I had the power, but the economy was failing and there was no money. By the time the economy was mended and I had the money, I lost the power.”
Is this not the John Major destroyed the economy, cost thousands their jobs, homes, businesses even their marriages with the entirely predictable disaster that was the ERM. This and the bloated inefficient state sector, 17%+ mortgage rates and high taxes he presided over. He then destroyed & buried the Tory Party’s reputation for relative economic competence making then unelectable for 3+ terms. Thus inflicting Bliar and Brown on the nation.
Even now we have a party led by yet more John Major “no nation socialist” types in the form of Osborne and Cameron. High taxes, complex taxes government waste everywhere and over regulation of everything.
Could Major just not finally say sorry, go away and just shut up for a change?
“At the heart of this was my wish to tackle inequality” or to put it another way – at heart my wish was to destroy incentives and lock people into a life living of others on benefits.
“In some of our great cities, the lifespan of the poorest is 20 years shorter than that of the most wealthy.”
Well people who are in poor health often cannot work and are likely to be poorer as a result of that ill health. The ill health is more often is the cause of this poverty rather than the other way round. A typical childish confusion of cause and effect.
If people chose to smoke, drink, take drugs, eat far too much of the wrong things and take very little exercise what does Major want the government to do about it? Making sure there are significant incentives to get a job might well help many avoid this I suspect.
“a nation at ease with itself” he actually set out to destroy the UK nation by having it subsumed into an antidemocratic, socialist EU superstate and breaking it up into regions.
Major only won the election because people thought he was Thatcher’s choice and would do sensible things like her but with a softer face. They soon realised their mistake and buried the party when he finally was forced to hold an election.
Even now the party has not really recovered from this disastrous man.
November 11, 2015
Nice to see how NHS managers can get such huge benefits, pensions and remuneration while presiding over such a dreadful dysfunctional service. One where often even the top the surgeons and people at the coal fact get well under £100K PA.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3313059/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-says-politicians-don-t-want-knowing-greed.html
November 11, 2015
If it’s to do with the EU I usually find that something which is being blamed on Blair or Brown can in fact be traced back to Major and Maastricht.
November 11, 2015
Is this the John Major that benefitted from a grammar school education, something his party would now deny to others as they maintain that is illegal to open new grammar schools.
November 11, 2015
…they maintain that is illegal to open new grammar schools, despite a burgeoning population!
November 11, 2015
Not sure that he “benefited” very much. Wiki says he left with three O-levels in History, English Language and English Literature.
November 11, 2015
@lifelogic
Not sure that he “benefitted” very much. That explains much.
November 11, 2015
The Spectator have an interesting chart showing that “inequality” measured in various different ways hasn’t really changed at all since the day Major came to power until today, so he did nothing to change it during his term in office and it’s no worse now than it was then. Amusing to hear him say “I had the money” as if it was his own and as if he could spend it to reduce inequality in some way. Reducing inequality is a stupid goal anyway, the fact several multi-billionaires live in UK doesn’t affect me at all.
November 11, 2015
Exactly. it is an absurd goal that destroys incentives, makes everyone poorer in the end, removes the moral hazard that encourages sensible behaviour.
Short of looking after those who for health reasons really are unable to do so themselves the government should keep out of it as far as possible. This benefits the poor as much as the wealthy. You do not learn how to provide for yourself by sitting on the sofa watching tv.
November 11, 2015
Would you have prefered Michael Heseltine?
November 11, 2015
No he is just as bad – but at least he was more honest about where he stood and he could speak in full sentences.
November 11, 2015
It’s saying something about a party when the only choice it could offer was between Heseltine and Major.
Reply and Hurd. Norman Tebbitt declined to run though I asked him to.
November 11, 2015
A great shame the Norman Tebbitt did not stand, I suspect in part due to the dreadful injuries to his poor wife in the Brighton bombing. Perhaps though he just realised how dreadfully wet and pathetic most Tory MPs and the party had become and simply thought he could not win.
November 11, 2015
John Major brought us to Blair – via sleeze, the ERM fiasco and mass immigration which the Tories started with Maastricht.
I recall – on the election of Labour – thinking that at least immigration would be brought back under control. No Labour government would allow the working man to continue to be undercut, surely ?
Mass immigration started under the Tories. It continues (at record levels) under the Tories.
It should be quite clear by now that the Tories are not Tories and anyone who stands for equality is not a Tory. Reward for effort, talent and on merits is what Tories should stand for.
The doctors, the police and even the Royal Marines have been out on the streets. What does that tell us ?
Reply The Major government fell because John Major wrongly took the UK into the Exchange Rate Mechanism and kept us there until it had done considerable economic damage – as recommended by the CBI and the Lib and Lab parties. The polls fell away on exit as the recession it caused became obvious,and never recovered.
November 11, 2015
Reply to reply
Yes the ERM fiasco was important but we learned that the Emperor had no clothes in other ways, too – Back to Basics, I seem to remember? Compared to his numbskull skills, presentation and handling of the country generally, Blair seemed like an intellectual and political giant.
November 11, 2015
It all sounds very sensible and proper, but in all my fifty odd years of voting, I have not been able to influence a change in anything. Since joining the Common Market/EU millions of registered voters have also been unable to change anything – and it’s getting worse.
I am registered, but can see no advantage in being registered or even voting.
Voting only elects the next group of politicians to run an ‘elected dictatorship’ following the directives from Brussels.
November 11, 2015
We will not be allowed to leave.
A disturbing development was the vote for sixteen-year-olds in the Scottish referendum.
Yes. The very same teenagers the government deemed too immature to buy scissors, matches and Christmas Crackers (because they contain explosives.)
November 11, 2015
If people could only vote after they have paid £20,000+ or similar in income tax and NI we would be far better governed I suspect.
November 12, 2015
If you ask people who pay no tax:- Would you like higher taxes on others, to be spent mainly on better services for you? You tend to get the rather obvious answer, yes.
November 11, 2015
This will do nothing to stop fraudulent postal voting. We all know how it works but as politicians see it as a culturally sensitive issue you do nothing about it.
So Nicky says Sunday trading in England will drive down Scottish wages. How does that work pray tell.
Glad to see Dave has presented a robust set of non demands to Donald the true ruler of Britain. Bet they’re all quaking in their boots.
November 11, 2015
Not only is postal voting a culturally sensitive issue but so too is female suffrage and the secret ballot. I recall somebody on the BBC saying that he’d seen the male heads of families sitting on public benches openly filling out all the postal ballots for their family members, and the BBC presenter asked him “What’s wrong with that?”
November 11, 2015
Anything that will make the Voter Registration more accurate and reliable is a step in the right direction . The way in which the system was abused last time was incredible ; individuals who were able to vote more than once , some who voted who were not eligible , were examples of the abuse ( all evidenced in the media ).
Making the individual responsible for his/her own entry is , at least traceable – and punishable ; equally the reliability of the invigilators – on the paper work and in situ at the polling stations . The forthcoming Referendum Vote is likely to produce more violation to the system than ever before , so , the indicated action taken is timely .
November 11, 2015
I had hoped you would be addresing two important issues today;
The feeble EU re-negotiation demands of your leader.
The SNP once again interfering in an English/Welsh issue. (relaxation of Sunday trading laws)
Reply I dealt with EU negotiation yesterday and posted my comments in the House today
November 11, 2015
Postal voting should not be allowed except under very limited, specific and controlled circumstances as we all know it is easily used for fraudulent voting
Individual Voter Registration will not stop many people being unable to cast their own vote. Only the elimination of postal voting can do this.
I am always amazed how I am able to vote without producing any proof of my identity or even my voting card.
I cannot believe the government are even considering internet voting when we know how easily computer systems can be hacked.
November 11, 2015
We haven’t received individual requests for voter registration; I remember completing the usual form for my wife and I earlier this year, it was pre-printed with our details as we’ve both been living here for at least 15 years since our family left home. All I had to do was sign and date it and put it back in the post. Perhaps our Council hasn’t got around to individual registration yet.
November 11, 2015
John,
To be honest, I suppose this new scheme is long overdue however, I am concerned about the security of the data and just whom will have access to it.
Will the data set be used solely for election purposes or will other government departments have access to it?
Will the state be able to sell all or part of this data set to other organisations?….I think of the DVLA whom you must provide with your data if you wish to drive or own a motor vehicle, but you cannot stop them selling it off to third parties, such as private parking companies etc.
Is just providing a national insurance number just once going to be enough? I think of the over zealous way some companies harvest data under the guise of anti money laundering.
Once we’ve proved our ID once, will we need to keep “proving” it every year?
Is this data gathering exercise the groundwork for the much hated by the population, but loved by politicians and the EU, ID Card scheme?
November 11, 2015
You say a NI number and a date of birth is needed. . . Will they actually be checked?. Several programs and newspaper reports over the last few years have shown people who have created “multiple identities” to claim massive fraudulent amounts in benefits. Don’t these people just use the same two bits of information? A lot of the people who are “uncontactable” for voting may well be part of these scams, because they actually don’t exist – and never have. I feel that getting your car Road Tax renewed over the phone/internet has more rigorous checks done on it than Benefits claims and voting eligibility. Voting fraud reports in the news in the last few years has always seemed to be based on one group of people, who want to be in power, and turn this country into the same as the one they came from.
November 11, 2015
Bigneil – How dare you.
It is worth giving up freedoms to be a culturally diverse nation.
November 11, 2015
Mr Corbyn openly said quite recently he considered the majority of people who may drop off the Register are Labour voters.
In theory, access to original ballots, I believe, and identification of persons requires the permission of a Magistrate. Mr Corbyn should be questioned further to ascertain why he is and can be so angrily cocksure.
November 11, 2015
@Mr Redwood
If you were aware of voter fraud, who would you report it to?
Reply The Electoral Registration department of the Council.
November 11, 2015
Off-topic:
https://euobserver.com/migration/131062
“Germany makes U-turn on Syrian refugees”
But in fact that should really be “has made”, because:
“The interior ministry told German media that since 21 October, authorities are “applying the Dublin regulation for all countries of origin and all member states (except Greece).”
That means migrants are sent back to the first country in which they entered the EU and where their asylum application must be examined.
This does not apply to Greece, where reception capacities are stretched and living conditions for migrants are deemed too poor.
The decision is a reversal of a step, taken in August, to suspend Dublin rules for Syrians, in a move criticised by some EU capitals for acting as a pull factor for more refugees to come.”
So economic migrants were paying criminal gangs to help them cross the seas to illegally enter the EU, and instead of taking steps to stop them the EU used the naval resources of the member states to provide a ferry service to facilitate their journies; then in a fit of moral self-righteousness Merkel proclaimed that they were all welcome in Germany, but noticeably failed to charter any ships to take them directly to Germany, or arrange any other transport for them, and instead set them off in their hundreds of thousands trudging through other countries to get there, in breach of EU law; then when the Hungarian Prime Minister decided to uphold EU law and block their passage through Hungary he was condemned; then the German people started saying that Merkel had summoned too many of them to Germany, so the government decided that it would observe EU law after all, and many of them would be sent back to the “frontline” countries who had experienced invasion thanks to Merkel, but not to Greece because both the ECHR and ECJ have ruled that Greece is not a “safe country” for refugees; and that decision was made three weeks ago, but was only made public yesterday.
What a total shambles, how can anybody think that we should stay in an EU where the government of one powerful member state can arbitrarily decide to observe the agreed rules or ignore the agreed rules, and can load the consequences on other member states, and can vilify somebody for upholding the agreed rules, and apparently not even bother to tell the other member states what arbitrary decisions it has made?
November 11, 2015
Oh God, Cameron’s going on another trip. How much is this one going to cost us?! Poor old Osborne – every time he reduces a bit of defecit his boss tops up the debt with giveaways to other countries. 😐
November 11, 2015
DaveM
I guarantee it will not be less than £100,000,000
November 12, 2015
Guessed right again
It is reported its £500,000,000 in todays press
These overseas trips are costing us a fortune.
Has he a clue as to where this money is actually spent !
November 11, 2015
there is no point in voting because the governments turn a blind eye to everything that needs doing. The best you will get is lip service.
November 11, 2015
yes that’s right I have had the council round already to ask if I would like to go on the votes list.
November 11, 2015
Well it is sensible as a first step. Frankly if you’re here legally and don’t have an NI number there is no reason you can’t apply for one. It’s not rocket science. That application process itself however needs to be made foolproof.
For all the earlier talk of ID cards, an NI systeWe are so so lax on this stuff. m can do the same job for a fraction of the cost.
November 11, 2015
Whilst a commendable albeit long overdue change to the legislation, I personally regret that “The Minister assures us that by the end of the process there will be at least nine attempts to contact each voter who has not qualified under the new system, including two personal visits.” since to date I have ignored only three letters and failed to answer the door on only one occasion so I can expect further harassment it seems. Does the Minister not appreciate that some of us value our privacy more than our vote?
November 11, 2015
No point in ID cards because if you not got one the government will give a passport.
November 11, 2015
Jeremy Hunts NHS,
Top office staff on 1.25 million a year plus pension of 2.5 million plus 400,000 pounds golden hello with 400,000 pounds golden goodbye, Office staff below paid more than doctor with better pension. At the bottom as a office worker you will receive more money than a qualify nurse, as for quangos top jobs topping over a million a year now with pensions and council leaders and staff under them are also hitting the jackpot and also government mandarin and staff working in their office. Even the police force with layoffs all over, the top brass pay go up and up.
I would say since the financial crisis most of these people have had their pay and pension double by the government and I would say by the way it going will double again in the next few years.
No wonder wet&mad is bottom fishing.
What it means is the coal face worker worthless and office worker is king or queen.
The northern power house will take place in the offices of the councils and quangos.
I do not blame the doctor and skilled manual staff for leaving the country.
November 11, 2015
One has to wonder about the council cuts to services with 140,000 new homes a year bring in extra money every year and with staff cuts are their pay and pension going up that fast.
November 11, 2015
May we have an assurance that MI5 will use the Electoral Register as one of many tools to weed out illegal immigration. Even if just a 1% sample of those on the Electoral Register were to be investigated in this way it would help. We would make a start with areas known to have a high proportion of illegal immigrants, such as Tower Hamlets and Lewisham.
November 11, 2015
and he told me this year he going to be a cash millionaire and when he leaves the council on top of that 25% of his pension up front and that he getting more pension than the people who have worked for the council for 40 years,
November 11, 2015
I see mr carney in the news today talking about cleaning up banks and bankers with wet&mad saying it wont happen on his watch again but happen on the person watch that follows him and if it dose happen your money will be safer and the ECB top man looking for a four bailout for Greece of over 60 billion so the banks in Europe get paid back for leading money to Greece people and business because at the moment they will be taking the winter off and paying no tax.
November 12, 2015
John,
What about the rights of those who have no intention to vote? There is not a party out there which makes me want to vote for them, so for the past 20 years I have not voted at all. Now if this new voter registration scheme came in together with a ‘None of the above’ option on the ballot paper, I would have no problem putting my name on it. I do however when I have no intent to vote at all. Where are my rights?
November 14, 2015
If the Tories were serious about democracy and voting they would allow it to be done online, but that is not the end game. They in fact want even less voting relying on apathy to allow them to win citing security issues as the reason. If everyone was easily able to vote via phone say then they would be routed. This being the reason that voting for strike action will not be allowed online in their anti union legislation. Used in the London election though, so tell me another reason?
November 14, 2015
When you actually turn up and vote they can tell its you and then you go alone into a booth, mark your X and vote just as you and only you decide in secret.
No one can steal your vote.
No one can intimidate you.
November 16, 2015
I once got hassled by a one of them busybodies who check you card, it was raining a few times, my young daughter was once intimidated by a dog and I once nearly forgot, but as you say I exercised my democratic rights without needing a trusty sawnoff. The internet would provide even more of what we want. Or should I say most want..