21st century election administration urged

Meg Munn MP writes for ePolitix.com ahead of her Westminster Hall debate on reform of electoral administration.

Electoral administration sparked much discussion when many hundreds of people were denied their vote at the recent general election. In my own constituency people who were queuing to vote were turned away at 10pm and the doors locked. Not because they turned up late, not because they were not on the electoral roll, but because of administrative blunders. This scene was repeated in Chester, Hackney, Leeds, Lewisham, Manchester, Newcastle and Islington.

The Electoral Commission undertook a review into what happened. It concluded that the common factor was poor planning and an inadequate system, specifically "unrealistic, inappropriate or unreliable assumptions; inadequate risk management and contingency planning".

Some of the affected polling stations were responsible for over 3,000 people, with others having as many as 4,500 possible voters. This is contrary to the guidance which states that numbers should not exceed 2,500. In almost all the areas which reported problems they had higher levels of turnout than expected – the polling staff were simply unable to cope with the demand. A contributing factor was the combination of local and general elections, which of course slowed the whole operation.

The Electoral Commission were advised that in some areas presiding officers continued to issue ballot papers after the close of poll at 10pm to people who were queuing within polling stations. Legislation is clear that no ballot papers should be issued after the close of poll.

Areas for change

In my view we should take this opportunity to comprehensively modernise the electoral administration for the UK. I suggest that the government should consider changes such as advanced voting in a suitable location like a town hall for up to five days before election day, and trialling weekend voting. There would be benefits if the rules were revised and those within polling station at close were able to vote.

Compiling the electoral register must have a higher priority, and returning officers must receive the resources necessary for this to be done. Local councils must use all the data banks available to get electoral registers up to date, such as council tax lists, SureStart centres etc.

We should also have a look at ballot paper design and how candidates are presented on them. In their 2003 report the Electoral Commission proposed that a randomised system for the names of candidates was the most attractive option, rather than the current alphabetical system which provides an advantage to those A and B candidates.

I found on the campaign trail many young people didn't know how to vote, where to go or how to find out about this basic democratic right. We should use advertising much more to reach out and inform people about the basics of voting, a 20 second advert could well encourage more first time voters to get out and vote.

We need an election administration system fit for the 21st century. The system we currently work with was designed when fewer than 5 million people had the vote, whereas we now have more than 44 million electors. We cannot rewrite the past, but we can use this opportunity to ensure that the administration of our democratic system is brought up-to-date.

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