Elections Bill

My Lords, the figures that the noble Lord gave will of course be of concern to the Committee and to any reasonable person following our proceedings. I have just been reading the Ballot Act 1872, Section 2 of which makes it clear that the vote shall be secret. It makes no reference to anybody conducting a voter and is particularly scrupulous, because of the great concern that there might be intervention by public authorities, that the presiding officers and staff in polling stations are kept completely apart from the act of voting; all they can do is check that the official mark has been made. The noble Lord’s point is well made, whether it is the Electoral Commission or the Secretary of State—although one would hope that the Secretary of State would be acting on the Electoral Commission’s advice on this matter anyway.