The Electoral Commission has today published a report on its analysis of the May 2015 electoral registers in Great Britain. This is part of the Commission’s programme of work monitoring the progress of the transition to Individual Electoral Registration (IER), and sets out the Commission’s recommendation on the timing of the end of the transition to IER.
The Commission notes in its report that the Electoral Registers are used for other purposes, such as determining the distribution and boundaries of parliamentary constituencies, which are currently next due for review on the basis of the registers published in December 2015. However, it also makes clear that this report and the advice it contains focuses on the register’s capacity to support and enable effective participation in elections and referendums by all those who want to take part, which has been the Commission’s consistently stated focus during the transition to IER.
The Commission reports that the transition to IER continues to progress well. Their analysis of the May 2015 parliamentary electoral registers identifies that the size of the electorate in Great Britain at that point was 45,336,013; an increase of 1% since February/March 2014 when the last registers were published under the household registration system.
However, taking into account the data and evidence which is available at this point, and the polls scheduled for May 2016, the Commission is recommending that Ministers should not make an order to bring forward the end of the transition to IER. The Commission recommends that the end date for IER transition should remain, as currently provided for in law, December 2016. The Commission’s report sets out the reasons for this recommendation and its view that, although there are some potential benefits to the accuracy of the register, there is no compelling case for bringing forward the end of the transition given that this could risk disenfranchising a significant number of voters before the important set of polls scheduled for May 2016.
The Commission’s goal is that the electoral registers support and enable effective participation in elections and referendums by all those who want to take part. Its analysis indicates that 1.9 million entries on the electoral registers relate to electors who are not registered individually. While there is still work to be done between now and December 2015 that the Commission expects will reduce the number of retained entries, it provides an indication of the maximum potential impact of ending the transition in December 2015.
There is significant variation in how these 1.9 million register entries are distributed across different local authorities. While in two thirds of local authority areas the level of retained entries is between 1% and 3% of their total number of register entries, the range, across all authorities, is 0 to 23%.
It is likely that many of the entries that would be removed from the register when the transition ends will be redundant (i.e. they relate to people who are no longer resident at that address). However, at this time, it is not possible for the Commission to tell how many are in fact for electors who are still resident and eligible to be registered to vote but who are not registered individually. It is also not possible for the Commission to tell how this balance between redundant entries and those for individuals who are still resident and eligible to remain registered at that particular address varies across and within different local authority areas.
On balance, the Commission believes that it is preferable to retain entries which may be redundant rather than remove now an unknown number of entries which relate to electors who are correctly registered and would otherwise have remained on the register.
This is because ERO activity over the 2015 canvass period is designed to enable redundant entries to be identified and removed. From 1 July 2015, EROs across Great Britain will be sending Household Enquiry Forms (HEFs) – which are designed to identify who is resident at an address and eligible to be registered - to all properties. EROs will also need to take prescribed steps to target existing electors who are not currently registered individually but appear to be eligible to remain registered so as to encourage them to make an application to register individually.
While EROs will be carrying out this and other public engagement activity over the canvass period, it is not possible, at this point, to know what the impact of that activity will be, and so state with any certainty what this will do to the current volume of retained register entries.
Separately, the data collected by the Commission also indicates that there remains an issue with the number of registered attainers. There were 247,705 attainers on the May 2015 local Government registers, which represents a fall of 47% in the number of registered attainers since February/March 2014.
The Commission’s view is that this decline is largely attributable to the lack of comprehensive household canvass activity in 2014. The processes followed in 2014 were unique in this regard; canvass activity in 2015 and all subsequent years will involve sending household enquiry forms to all properties to check who is resident at an address and to identify new electors who can subsequently be invited to register, and carrying out follow up activity as required.
All EROs should be updating their local public engagement strategies ahead of the 2015 canvass, reflecting the activity they intend to carry out to target under-registered groups, such as attainers. All EROs will need to ensure that their engagement strategies reflect the activity they will carry out to maximise the number of attainers who are registered, and working with schools and colleges within their area is a key area of activity the Commission will expect EROs to explore. Through the Commission’s work on performance standards, it will continue to monitor and support EROs in the process of updating their engagement strategies and delivering the activities identified within them.
The Commission will be collecting further data from EROs on the conclusion of the 2015 canvass, including on the number of attainers, which they will report on in spring 2016.
Copies of the Commission’s report have been placed in the library and it is also available on the Commission’s website: www.electoralcommission.org.uk
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