Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Wednesday 27th June 2012 Commons Chamber

At present there is no provision for extending the polling time or issuing ballot papers beyond 10 pm, except of course in the case of riot or open violence, when polling would be adjourned to the following day. I am not talking about exceptional circumstances when there are riots or open violence at polling stations; I am talking about circumstances, such as those that occurred at the last general election, when people are genuinely present at the polling station, perhaps at 10 minutes to 10, yet there were so many that the ballot papers could not be issued.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

What happens under the current arrangements if there is suddenly a medical incident, such as a car accident, outside a polling station at a quarter to 10 and the police have to secure the area while the ambulance men deal with anyone who is hurt? Would the polling station close at 10 regardless, because that seems a bit silly?

[Mrs Laing]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. That is exactly the sort of contingency that I am asking the House to consider in new clause 4. At present, if an incident occurs that prevents a potential voter entering a polling station or slows down their progress there from the car park, the tube or train station, the bus stop or the zebra crossing, nothing can be done about it.

[Bob Stewart]

That is wrong.

[Mrs Laing]

I agree. If the presiding officer is standing at the door of the polling station and sees that there are people just about to come in at 10 minutes to 10 but they are being prevented from doing so by some very good and unforeseen reason, and if he knows that when they come in it might be two minutes to 10 and there is no way 10 or 15 ballot papers can be issued in two minutes, under the current arrangements he can do nothing about it. He has to say, “Too bad. That happened and you lose your vote.” That seems entirely undemocratic and simply wrong.

This matter has been considered by the courts, which have held that

“where a ballot paper has been duly issued to an elector that elector should be allowed to complete it and put it in the ballot box provided this is done without undue delay. However”—

and this is the crux of the matter—

“no ballot papers should be issued after the time of close of poll.”

So if a person is standing in a queue of five or six people—it does not have to be a crowd—at five minutes to 10, and in front of them someone is having difficulty identifying their name, or is perhaps suffering from a disability that makes it difficult for them to give their name quickly to the polling clerk—

[Bob Stewart]

Or collapses.

[Mrs Laing]

Yes. My hon. Friend once again comes up with an interesting contingency. Supposing someone at the front of the queue collapses or becomes ill and attention is thus diverted, the five or six people who are legitimately standing there at 10 or five minutes to 10, expecting without any problem to be given their ballot paper, cannot be given one if the clock strikes 10. That just cannot be right.

The courts—this is a statement of the law at present—have ruled:

“We are of the opinion that the true dividing line is the delivery of the ballot paper to the voter. If he has had a ballot paper delivered to him before”—

10 pm—

“he”—

I say “he”, because I think that the judgment was delivered before the female of the species was entitled to vote. Let us therefore bring this judgment of the courts up to date: when I say “he”, I mean “he” or “she”.

The judgment continues, finding that

“he is entitled in our judgment to mark that ballot paper and deposit it in the ballot box before the ballot box is closed and sealed. This interpretation of the enactment…appears to us to give a simple, definite, and just rule of procedure… As the polling commences at”—

7 am—

by the officials, and the machinery being ready then to supply ballot papers to voters who apply for them, so in our view the poll must be no longer ‘kept open’ beyond”—

10 pm—

“the officials then ceasing to supply ballot papers to applicants.”

That position, as stated in court, was confirmed most recently by an election court in Northern Ireland, which in 2001 stated:

“It was the duty of the presiding officer to close the poll at 10pm by ceasing to issue any more voting papers. So long as voting papers were issued by 10pm, however, if electors marked them and deposited them in the boxes without delay the votes were valid.”

The Electoral Commission, in guidance published for the Scottish elections in May this year, issued strict directions to presiding officers on what exactly should happen. Some people have argued that it would not be possible to determine where a queue ends and where exactly the cut-off point should be for people who are entitled to vote, but that criticism has to be nonsense. The presiding officer—surely, in a position of responsibility—will be able either to close the door or to usher people inside the polling station, and to say exactly where the cut-off point should be.

The guidance states:

“If there is a queue shortly before 10 pm”—

the presiding officer should—

“find out if anyone waiting is delivering a postal vote so that they can hand in the postal vote before the 10pm deadline; Make sure that nobody joins the queue after 10pm; If there is a queue at 10pm and if the polling station can accommodate all the electors in the queue, ask electors to move inside the polling station and close the doors behind the last elector in the queue”.

That is so simple. The guidance continues:

“If the polling station is too small to accommodate all the electors in the queue, a member of the polling station team should mark the end of the queue by positioning themselves behind the last elector in the queue”—

again, terribly simple and straightforward. The presiding officer, the guidance notes state, should also:

“Explain to anyone who arrives after 10 pm and tries to join the queue that the poll has closed and that, by law, they cannot now join the queue to be issued with a ballot paper.”

All that is terribly simple and straightforward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute. I rise with some trepidation to debate “clause 4”, but it nevertheless has my wholehearted support. I want to provide a few anecdotes in support of the new clause. In my view, the issues it deals with are not confined to the last general election, as they have been going on for many years. On the basis of experience of fighting elections in my part of London over 38 years, I know that turnout will double between the opening of the poll and 6 o’clock in the evening and the period after that until the close of the poll.

In my part of the world, many people travel long distances or have small shops that they keep open for quite extended hours. At the conclusion of their work, they travel back and join long queues to seek to exercise their right to vote. This is not confined to one or two polling stations, as it applies to many. This has been a problem for a long time.

The 2004 London mayoral election and the European elections were held on the same day, causing dramatic confusion in polling stations and leading to serious problems, with long queues forming—certainly in my neck of the woods. Some people were confused about what they were voting for, but the need to issue them with large numbers of ballot papers caused extensive delays.

In the London mayoral elections of 2008, the number of Londoners wanting to vote for Boris Johnson as Mayor and to kick out Ken Livingstone was so overwhelming that it led to huge queues in polling stations, particularly in areas where large turnouts were not expected, causing further problems. In the general election of 2010, because of the activities of both political parties—certainly in my constituency—people regularly had to queue for an hour to exercise their votes during the day.

The presiding officer has discretion over what constitutes a polling station. If it is a Portakabin, it is fairly straightforward, but if it is a school the question arises of where the polling station begins and ends—is it the school gates or the school hall? That causes further consternation.

The key point is this, however. When people are keen to go to the polling station to express their views by voting, it is vital for them to be able to get there and to queue for however long it takes for the ballot papers to be issued, and for however long it takes those ahead of them in the queue who have also sought to be there validly before the 10 pm watershed to register their own votes. I can think of nothing more frustrating for someone who has travelled a long distance back from work, has arrived at home, has said “Oh yes, I must go and register my vote”, has reached the polling station at 9.45 pm, and has joined the queue than to be denied his or her vote because the queue is so long, and to be told by the presiding officer “Very sorry; you arrived too late.” We can imagine the reactions of people who have travelled long distances or closed their shops quite late in the day in order to go and vote.

The problem has been raised with me many times in connection with polling stations in north-west London. I think it important for us to set in stone in the Bill that if someone has reached the polling station, validly, before 10 pm and is in the queue, that person’s vote will be recorded. I do not think it acceptable for presiding officers throughout the country to be able to interpret the position in different ways. If a presiding officer says “According to my watch it is 9.59 pm so I shall allow you to vote, although the time is actually 10.10 pm”, that is not a valid way of operating.

It cannot be right that elections could be won or lost on the basis of a presiding officer’s judgment of what the time is. That is clearly not what Parliament wants, or what the people want. What we want is absolute clarity, so that there is the minimum wriggle room for a presiding officer in the interpretation of the rules and the maximum capability for people to register their votes validly in the way that they wish.

[Bob Stewart]

Does my hon. Friend agree that presiding officers should be given a certain amount of flexibility when it comes to deciding exactly where their polling station is, and should have enough flexibility to be able to say “In the interests of democracy, I should make this decision”, or does he believe that the legislation should be so prescriptive that it lays down in black and white exactly what should happen? I tend to think that it would be quite good for the presiding officer to have a bit of wriggle room, and to have a say in what should happen when unforeseen circumstances occur.

[Bob Blackman]

I ask my hon. Friend to imagine this scenario. A person gets home late, arrives at the polling station, parks in the school car park and dashes through the doors of the school at 9.59 pm, but of course the polling station is in a hall further on. The person then gets lost because the signage is not good enough, or, worse still, is misdirected and goes to the wrong polling station, because there is often more than one in the same building. Whose fault is that? It is the person’s fault, because he or she is the voter.

Such questions are difficult, but what is clear is that the law should say that if the voter has arrived in the polling station, or in the queue at the polling station, his or her vote should be recorded. What should not happen is that a person arrives at the place where the ballot papers are issued, only to be told “I am sorry, but it is one minute past 10 and we have closed the polling station, so you are not allowed to vote”—although the person has been in the polling station and validly queuing for 15 or 20 minutes, or perhaps even half an hour. That is what needs to be clarified. There should be the minimum discretion in that respect, but the maximum discretion for the voter.