Electoral Fraud

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Sir Eric makes recommendations about postal votes, one of which is that political activists should no longer harvest postal votes. That practice is discouraged by the Electoral Commission in its code of conduct, but this is only a voluntary rather than a statutory prohibition. We will carefully consider how to deliver the ban on specified persons handling postal ballot papers, including enforcement and the creation of a new offence. As I said, we want to do all we can to increase public confidence in the voting system.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords, did not the Pickles report find that election fraud had been particularly evident in our Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, where cases have been ignored because of,

“over-sensitivities about ethnicity and religion”?

What can the Government do to stop that in future?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The Electoral Commission has identified 18 areas where there is a higher risk of electoral fraud, and Sir Eric has recommended that there should be a pilot in 2018 whereby ID must be produced to reduce incidents of impersonation. The Government are currently consulting on which local authority areas should take part in those pilots in 2018, and of course some of those local authorities at risk will be invited to participate.