Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what assessment her Department has made of potential arrangements for the introduction of online electoral registration in Northern Ireland.
The Government has allocated additional funding to the Chief Electoral Officer to enable his office to extend digital registration to Northern Ireland. The digital registration scheme has been in operation very successfully in the rest of the UK since 2014.
The Chief Electoral Officer has conducted a successful procurement exercise to identify the preferred provider of a new electoral management system which will facilitate digital registration. User testing of initial models of the online experience will begin at the end of this month.
We propose that in addition to the currently available paper registration process, an on-line registration service will be available in Northern Ireland by the end of 2016.