Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what consideration the Government has given to continuing to use the matching system between the electoral register and Government databases that was used in the transition towards Individual Electoral Registration.

The matching of electoral registers against Government and local authority data, referred to as ‘confirmation,’ was a one off exercise to help simplify the change to Individual Electoral Registration (IER). It resulted in 87% of existing electors being automatically transferred to the new registers under IER without needing to take any action. Data matching continues to form an important part of the system for voter registration, in verifying new applications, but also locally in identifying and verifying applications from eligible electors. We will keep under review the scope for data to further improve voter registration.