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.
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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.
Revealed exclusively by the World at One just over 24 hours ago!
ReplyDeleteBJ, To be fair to Vicky she first talked to me about this on Monday and blogged about it earlier in the week too!
ReplyDeleteWhich are the more mobile - Tory or Labour voters? Could make all the difference.
ReplyDeleteFair enough. Bloody good story about a cabinet minister coming out soon, by the way.
ReplyDeleteWe'll perhaps Gordon wants to repeat Labour electoral oversight success they had in Scotland.
ReplyDeleteSince 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 ?
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.
ReplyDeleteIt's all right. Any missing votes will be made up by Labour's 'come one, come all' postal voting scam.
ReplyDeleteThe 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.
Ten Percent? Its not the same crew thta organsied the Scottish Elections is it?
ReplyDeletehttp://politics.guardian.co.uk/scotland/story/0,,2075072,00.html
Damn. It is.
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".
ReplyDeleteIt will be a lot higher than that in some seats.
ReplyDeleteFor example Sheffield central and Oxford East each have more than 20,000 student voters, most of whom will have moved accommodation over the summer.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/7018729.stm
ReplyDeleteGood to see this Nu Lab charlatan being found out.
Trumpeter, aren't NuLab going to be introducing 3 for 2 offers at the ballot boxes?
ReplyDeleteTrumpeter 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.
ReplyDeleteFrom the DT:
ReplyDeleteShould 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".
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!
ReplyDeleteThose 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
ReplyDeleteabout 23 minutes in - Nick Robinson + David Monks (who is also worried about the postal votes)
"Roll" not "Role".
ReplyDelete"Conservatives for Proper Spelling"