Agenda item
ELECTORAL SERVICES - REGISTRATION OF ELECTORS & CONDUCT OF ELECTIONS
There will be a Power point presentation for Members by Isabella Freeman and Louise Stamp.
Minutes:
Isabella Freeman, Assistant Chief Executive, Legal Services and Louise Stamp, Electoral Services Manager, were both in attendance. Louise Stamp gave a PowerPoint presentation for Members on Electoral Services and its role in voter registration. In response to some Members’ questions, the following points were outlined:
- Trying to ascertain or identify the most effective way of reaching out to the community to encourage residents to respond to the electoral canvass was an on-going priority for the Service. Maintaining an up to date and accurate electoral register was challenging for a number of reasons, including a low response rate to the canvas from people living in private gated housing developments, a problem which was compounded by the transient nature of the borough’s population. Letters had been sent to the Managing Agents of private properties in an attempt to encourage responses and to ensure that officers canvassing were able to access the building, but this has not had a significant impact on the response rate;
- To ensure the integrity of the electoral register, a canvass of properties with more than six residents was conducted immediately prior to elections, to remove electors from the register if they no longer resided at properties in the borough;
- The law stated that the information provided by a resident about the people living at the same address must be taken at face value;
- Investigations by the returning officer can only be conducted if there was evidence of some discrepancy;
- In order to tackle the poor responses to canvassers from some residents in the community, outreach work was being carried out and election material written was published in languages other than English, for example Bengali, to ensure large sections of the community were reached;
- Wilful non-responders had been prosecuted attracting a £465 fine and it was hoped that this would act as a deterrent;
- Individual voter registration would be compulsory from 2014. The Council’s records would be matched with the records from the DWP. If there were any discrepancies, the information would be rejected and subjected to further verification and checks;
- Prior to the next elections in 2014, pre-meetings would also be arranged with agents to discuss ways of ensuring community liaison, with a view to facilitating the electoral/voting process for residents;
- If registration information appeared to be questionable, electoral officers could request evidence to verify the resident’s identity for example by cross referring with a recent utility bill or passport;
- Work had also been carried out at schools and citizenship ceremonies to encourage as many residents as possible to register;
- There was a dedicated officer who performed outreach work, particularly aimed at local Bengali women, explaining the importance of registering the right to vote. The Women’s Tower Hamlets Inclusive Network had been contacted to identify women’s groups in the borough who could host such outreach activities;
- In order to ascertain whether different registration forms could increase voter registration response rates, a pilot was being conducted with the Cabinet Office Behavioural Rights team whereby simplified forms were sent to a sample of properties. A comparison will be made with registration rates in areas where the normal forms were submitted and the results would be analysed in December 2012.
Members requested that the Assistant Chief Executive report back to the committee on the results of the annual canvas in November and again in February following the completion of the postal vote registration process.
The Chair thanked the officers for their presentation.
RESOLVED:
That the presentation be noted.