Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what evidence base his Department uses to assess what gaps exist in the electoral register.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
There is a wide-ranging evidence base on electoral registration. This includes the completeness and accuracy studies conducted by the Electoral Commission as well as academic and other research. I have also collected a large amount of evidence from the meetings and roundtable discussions I have held over recent months as part of my Every Voice Matters tour. Our forthcoming democratic engagement plan, to be published later in December 2017, will set out some of the evidence we have gathered as well as our plans for future action.
Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of implementing an automatic voter registration system.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The Government does not support a policy of automatic voter registration and has made no assessment of the costs of implementation of any such system.
Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of tracking military personnel who are serving overseas on the electoral register.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The most recent annual Armed Forces Continuous Attitude Survey (AFCAS) includes information on self-reported levels of electoral registration. The latest data are that 96 per cent of Officers are registered to vote and 81 per cent of other ranks are registered to vote.
The Government is committed to ensuring that Armed Forces personnel have an equal chance to participate in elections while serving overseas. The Government will publish a democratic engagement strategy in December setting out our plans to continue to improve registration levels, including for Armed Forces personnel.
Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of (a) joining up existing disability registers with the electoral register and (b) recording preferences on accessing information on the electoral register.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
In response to the recent Department of Health consultation on the future use of the CVI, I expressed my support to allow someone to provide their consent for the local authority to use the information to provide support at elections for blind and partially sighted voters, and my officials are currently working with their DH colleagues to determine how this can be implemented.
Local authorities already hold a register of partially sighted and blind people and are expected to use this information to ensure that election communications are provided to named citizens in accessible formats.
On 5th September, at the meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Learning Disability, I launched a Call for Evidence to support the Government’s commitment to ensure the electoral system is accessible for all electors. The deadline for responses was 14th November 2017 and around 250 responses have been received.
The Government, in partnership with the members of the Cabinet-Office-chaired Accessibility of Elections Working Group, which includes representatives from leading charities and key electoral stakeholders, will now review the evidence received and produce a report of key findings and recommendations. The aim is to publish the report in Spring 2018.
Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate he has made of the number of eligible people not on the electoral register for the last five general elections in (a) the UK and (b) Nottingham North.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
Information regarding the total number of unregistered people of voting age is not held by the Government. Only totals for the number of registered electors are held, and these can be accessed through the Office For National Statistics website. It should be noted, however, that registration levels have increased at every General Election since 2005, and the register used for the 2017 General Election was the largest in our history, standing at 46.9 million entries. This is undoubtedly due, in large part, to the introduction of the Government’s Register to Vote website, which has delivered great benefits to electors, making registering to vote simpler and more accessible than ever before.
It is the Government’s intention to build on this success by publishing a Democratic Engagement Plan in December, which will have the ambition of making the General Election in 2022 the most inclusive to date.
Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of setting up an online service for voters to check whether they are already registered to vote for the purposes of reducing the number of duplicate applications.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
I refer you to my answer to the member for Lancaster and Fleetwood. Determining an individual’s registration status is the responsibility of Electoral Registration Officers and only EROs hold up-to-date information allowing a citizen to check if they are registered. This means that citizens can contact their local electoral administration office to make enquiries about registration status.
Making information about registration status available on-line on a national basis would be a significant undertaking and we have no current plans to introduce such a system. It may be more appropriate for EROs to work with their software suppliers to make registers available for checking on-line.
Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of the Association of Electoral Administrators' recommendation that the collection of voters' email addresses should no longer be optional when registering to vote.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The register to vote service has processed over 29.4 million applications and one of the key reasons for the success of the service is it’s simplicity. Mandating the entry of an email address to complete an application to register to vote can create barriers to registration, as not everyone has an email address. This is why we encourage applicants to provide an email address rather than requiring one. We will continue to make sure that applicants are encouraged to provide e-mail addresses, recognising that holding this data can be helpful for Electoral Registration Officers.