General Election: Voting Deadline

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

My Lords—

[Lord Naseby]

My Lords—

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, wishes to speak.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I have not seen the Scope research, but I will certainly study it. It is very important that all sections of our community, with any measure of disability, should be able to vote. One thing that I know is being considered is electronic voting, which might be an alternative for people with disabilities. But I take the noble Baroness’s point: disabled people, just like anyone else, want to exercise their vote personally at a polling station. We will look into that.

[Lord Naseby]

Is my noble friend aware that I asked a similar Question on 14 June? Since that date, it has transpired that bonuses have been paid to the returning officers for a number of those polling districts. Is that not an extraordinary situation and one that should be reversed?

Elections: Fraudulent Registration

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2010 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Naseby]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they will take to prevent fraudulent multiple registration by individuals to vote in elections and to ensure that electors who turn out to vote can do so.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, the Government are committed to tackling electoral fraud by speeding up the introduction of individual electoral registration. This will improve the accuracy of the register and ensure that only those entitled to vote get on to the electoral register. We are also considering the Electoral Commission’s report on the queues at polling stations on 6 May and the Government will take any appropriate steps necessary to prevent a repeat.

[Lord Naseby]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that succinct Answer. Is he aware that on 23 February I asked a supplementary to a Question for Oral Answer about how many recommendations from the Electoral Commission the then Government had implemented? I received a holding response that afternoon and later a letter was placed in the Library which indicated that there were a great many outstanding items. In the light of the last election when over 1,000 queued up and then could not vote, and there were serious problems with the register itself, as indicated by the Commonwealth monitoring group, is it not time to look at the role and powers of the Electoral Commission so that we have full and fair elections and can trust in the results?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I share the aspirations of my noble friend, but it is fair to put the case into perspective. There were problems at 27 polling stations out of 40,000. That was a bad piece of public relations and terrible pictures went around the world, but in fact represented a very small percentage of the actual turnout.

On the powers of the Electoral Commission, I think it is true to say that it has few teeth; whether it should be given more teeth or its powers transferred elsewhere is a matter for discussion and examination after we have its report on the recent general election.