Electoral System

Not for a moment. In June 2004, the Government imposed all-postal voting in the face of cross-party and Electoral Commission opposition. There was chaos. One result was even annulled by an election court in the responsible Cabinet Minister’s backyard of Hull. The Labour party should not be too smug on the question of fraud, because the Labour campaign manual advised activists to build their own ballot boxes and go around collecting postal votes. It said:"““You could even have a ballot box for people to put their votes in which you can then deliver to the returning officer.””" People were being misled into thinking that Labour party workers were something to do with the electoral system. Meanwhile, in Parliament, concern was rising. I took the issue up with the then Leader of the House on several occasions, and a former colleague, Dame Marion Roe, identified just how inaccurate the electoral registers had become. In an important debate in Westminster Hall, she made the point that"““an accurate electoral register is the cornerstone of any democracy.””—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 5 May 2004; Vol. 420, c. 441WH.]" She had noticed ineligible people appearing on the register in her constituency, started to make inquiries and discovered that no proper checks were being made. She was shocked that, through parliamentary questions, she was able to uncover that when a ““cleaning exercise”” took place and the names of the people on the register were checked to see whether they lived at the addresses that were given, literally thousands of names had to be taken off the register. She gave the worst examples. Some 15,486 individuals, or 18.6 per cent. of the register, were removed in Brentford and Isleworth and 11,210, or 14.5 per cent., were removed in Portsmouth, South. She gave other examples that showed that there was a major problem. One example that she gave was that of a journalist who had been able to get himself registered in 31 constituencies using the name ““Gus Troovbev””, which is actually an anagram of ““bogus voter””. In April 2005, an election court found Labour councillors in Birmingham guilty and the commissioner Richard Mawrey described fraud that"““could disgrace a banana republic.””" In the general election of 2005, for the first time, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development sent election observers from Ukraine and Serbia to police our elections. In their report, they raised concerns about security. On 22 June 2005, I led a debate on the integrity of the process, pointing out the need for individual voter registration and security measures such as those introduced in Northern Ireland in 2002. Despite the support of most parties in the House for individual voter registration, the Government have persistently refused to introduce such a system. They prefer to leave in place the system in which the head of the household fills in the form for all those in the home. Not only is this very old fashioned, looking back to the days before the equality of women was recognised, but it fails to recognise the way in which people now live their lives. In homes in multiple occupation, one wonders how many forms are simply thrown away by one housemate, unwittingly depriving the others of their voter registration. The right to vote is an individual right and it should be individually registered and exercised.