Friday, September 28, 2007

How Ten Per Cent May Miss Out on A Vote

Vicky Ford - one of the four finalists for the Grantham and Stamford selection - has discovered that ten per cent of the elctorate could be effectively disenfranchised by an autumn election.
I've just been talking to the elections officer.She in the middle of putting together the new electoral register, effective from 1st December. (Have you returned your form?) In my rural district there are about 105,000 voters, she currently estimates that 10,000 people have changed their addresses or are new on the role. But currently those new details don't stand. i.e. approx 10% of the voting population in this area are affected.If an election is called now Gordon Brown has to give 18 working days notice. Each of those 10,000 people will then need to be written to asking if they want their new details to be the ones that stand. If they do they have to write back with a deadline 11 working days before the election. (Not a lot of days there...) If someone has moved within the polling area they can still vote as if from their old address - but many may not have.

17 comments:

BJ said...

Revealed exclusively by the World at One just over 24 hours ago!

Iain Dale said...

BJ, To be fair to Vicky she first talked to me about this on Monday and blogged about it earlier in the week too!

Anonymous said...

Which are the more mobile - Tory or Labour voters? Could make all the difference.

BJ said...

Fair enough. Bloody good story about a cabinet minister coming out soon, by the way.

Man in a Shed said...

We'll perhaps Gordon wants to repeat Labour electoral oversight success they had in Scotland.

Since socialism is based on the idea of knowing what is good for other people - whether they like it or not - giving them the vote hardly fits the plan for Gordon's New Britain does it ?

Anonymous said...

Labour are apparently thinking of a date which has to be called before October 3rd - and lots of senior Labour figures have apparently been told to expect an announcement next week. Looks like Brown might be going for it before the economic chickens come home to roost.

Anonymous said...

It's all right. Any missing votes will be made up by Labour's 'come one, come all' postal voting scam.

The ballots will be collected in bundles by your friendly Labour party agent. If you ask him nicely he will also fill them out for you.

Anonymous said...

Ten Percent? Its not the same crew thta organsied the Scottish Elections is it?

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/scotland/story/0,,2075072,00.html

Damn. It is.

David Lindsay said...

If this year sees a "snap" General Election, then we are currently living through by far the longest "snap" in history. There would have been a very high abstention rate anyway. It will now be enormous, out of sheer boredom with this never-ending "snap".

Liberal Neil said...

It will be a lot higher than that in some seats.

For example Sheffield central and Oxford East each have more than 20,000 student voters, most of whom will have moved accommodation over the summer.

Anonymous said...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/7018729.stm

Good to see this Nu Lab charlatan being found out.

Anonymous said...

Trumpeter, aren't NuLab going to be introducing 3 for 2 offers at the ballot boxes?

Anonymous said...

Trumpeter beat me to it. I was going to write that they could always go to a "community leader" and ask him to vote on their behalf.

Anonymous said...

From the DT:
Should there be a poll in October or November there is a danger that as many as a million people could be disenfranchised.

David Monks, the chief executive of Huntingdonshire council who speaks on behalf of returning officers in England, said an early election could interfere with the normal updating of the electoral register.

He said the new register would not be finalised until Dec 1 and the number of people missing from the roll before then could run "up to seven figures".

Anonymous said...

Yep, this applies to me and my girlfriend, having recently moved from one London borough to another. We've been told that we won't be included on the electoral roll until December, despite returning our forms on the same day they arrived. We're living in Islington though so probably doesn't make much difference!

Anonymous said...

Those Telegraph quotes are taken from the WATO interview with David Monks. Listen here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio4_aod.shtml?radio4/wato_thu

about 23 minutes in - Nick Robinson + David Monks (who is also worried about the postal votes)

Ttony said...

"Roll" not "Role".

"Conservatives for Proper Spelling"