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Voter registration is about to fall off a cliff

October 25, 2012 10:45 am

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Paul Wheeler

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Hands up if you know your National Insurance number. If you are telling the truth much less than half of you actually do. Does it matter? Well in two years time, if you don’t, you won’t be eligible to register to vote.

Some of you may have been vaguely aware that the Coalition Government has announced its intention to move towards individual voting registration by 2015. In the modern world it is perhaps better to place this responsibility on individuals rather than heads of households. However individual voting registration is one thing, making it a requirement to provide a National Insurance number is quite another. Apart from the fact that some people have never had an NI number, a much larger number would be unwilling to provide it for a reasonable fear that when combined with a date of birth (which is also been requested) it could lead to identity theft. Ben Page (the polling guru) estimates that barely 25% of the population know their NI number. It does seem bizarre that you can open a bank account without providing your national insurance number but soon won’t be eligible to vote. The problem of not having a NI number is particularly acute amongst the unemployed, adolescents who have not been sent one, the retired who have moved house and citizens who have emigrated and returned. The independent Electoral Commission have estimated that 73% of the electorate would be concerned if they were asked to provided their NI number and that 15% of the electorate (or 6 million voters) will be deterred from registering to vote by the requirement to provide a NI number.

So how have we arrived here? As always there is a conspiracy and a cock up theory. The conspiracy theory is that this is a form of voter suppression more commonly associated with the American Deep South. Certainly all the evidence suggests that it will predominately be those under 30 who will fail to register to vote in the new regime. The cock-up (or ‘omnishambles’) theory is also relevant. When the individual voter registration was discussed in the Commons there was no suggestion of a National Insurance requirement – only a signature. When it got to the Cabinet Office it was realised that this would be a barrier to online registration. The instant solution by Whitehall’s finest was the National Insurance option. Except it isn’t a good idea for all the reasons outlined above. As for Ed Miliband’s idea of mass voter registration? F orget it. Who is going to give their date of birth and National Insurance details to a random stranger on a dark doorstep?

The tragedy is that Britain has a proud record of effective voter registration. Thanks to the unsung efforts of council electoral registration officers throughout the land we have built up a internationally respected form of civic registration. Of course it could be modernised and online registration is the way forward but not in the way that the Cabinet Office (who have little experience of the practical issues relating to voter registration) have suggested. If the government really wanted to do something about improving voter registration it could find a better way of helping single person households than the current single person council tax discount. That really is a form of voter suppression with millions of households having to choose between democratic rights and a financial saving.

We are facing the collapse of our electoral register with all the implications for democratic participation which will also have profound implications for the future composition of juries (jury lists are compiled from current electoral registers). At the final hour the heavy guns have got involved. Liverpool Council has scheduled a debate at its next council meeting calling on the Local Government Association to campaign against this change up to and including a Judicial Review. Graham Allen MP, the formidable Chairman of the Public Administration Select Committee, has written to every Peer asking them to register their concern as the proposed legislation receives their scrutiny from October 29th. In the modern world it seems we have to rely on unelected peers to protect the franchise.

Paul Wheeler is Director of the Political Skills Forum which exists to promote the role of local politics and councillors

metrolivia

If it aint broken, why fix it? I would never give my NI number and my date of birth to anyone….so this would mean I could not vote in my own Country….no wonder the LibDems have never been in power with crazy ideas such as this one (to add to many others)
HowardKnight

Paul
We don’t have a recent proud record of electoral registration. And, it isn’t the fault of EROs.
Since the Poll Tax debacle – and, when taken together with significant increased mobility- under-registration has increased dramatically. Our current arrangements mean that the UK has some of the least accurate (comparing ‘entitlement to register’ with ‘actual registration’) electoral registers in the world. The new single registration arrangements will do nothing to resolve the basic issues and registration is bound to decline further, despite the resources that EROs will throw at it. Continuing to allow second registrations (second home owners and students etc) simply compounds the problems. This week’s ONS report on second-home ownership etc distribution gives a further indication of just quite how distorted the (non-) equalisation of constituencies would be under the Tory’s boundary review proposals.
And the proposed requirement to provide your NI number adds zilch to the integrity of the process. Have we forgotten that there are c 6 million additional NI numbers in circulation beyond the estimated numbers of people entitled to have one? This is just the latest expensive initiative across a wide range of services (health, work and pensions, local government) to try to address the identity/entitlement issue. Since scrapping the ID plans, the government is spending hundreds of £millions in introducing a range of different ID proxies. It’s time the NAO was asked to investigate just how much extra scrapping ID plans has actually cost. There are no savings!!
Until the UK has:
- a robust identity scheme
- compulsory registration based on that identity
- single registration
our arrangements will remain open to international criticism – and quite right too.
- Redshift1
  
  I think one way of improving the current system is to stop registration being a tool for debt collection agencies.
  
  I know that might be a little controversial for some but frankly you register to vote as a requirement and as a right whatever your financial situation or whatever else. It clearly deters a lot of people from registering, so let’s make it private between the council, the individual and political parties. You can already opt out of normal companies being able to see the data – but credit agencies are given a status shared only with political parties. Political parties are part of the democratic process. Debt collection isn’t.
MonkeyBot5000

If the government really wanted to do something about improving voter
registration it could find a better way of helping single person
households than the current single person council tax discount. That
really is a form of voter suppression with millions of households having
to choose between democratic rights and a financial saving.

Firstly, refusing to provide information for the electoral register carries an extortionate fine as the threatening letters the council send out like to remind us. Secondly, lying about how many people live at your address in order to get a council tax discount would be considered fraud and also punished heavily.

Show us some evidence that “millions of households” are considering risking a £1000 fine for not being registered and being prosecuted for fraud just to get a 25% reduction in their council tax.
- Dave_Costa
  
  The fine is an excellent example for the argument that certainty of punishment is the most effective deterrent – almost no-one gets taken to court so the potential fine has no effect. A more certain penalty – which some wise EROs choose to highlight – is being cut off from most forms of credit if you are not on the register (those offering credit are the only people outside politics given access to the unedited register). I’m sceptical about the council tax argument – but we would certainly have more people registered if EROs used their power under the PPERA to check up on those paying council tax and/or using council services who aren’t on the electoral register.
  
  The threat posed by the switch to individual registration and the additional problem caused by the NI number requirement are the main points. On the NI number I think Peter overstates a bit – I’m part of that huge majority who don’t know their NI number but like everyone in work (or on a company pension) I can find it quite quickly on a pay slip when I need it. Is the same true of state pension and benefit documents - if so, the use of the NI number is an unacceptable nuisance which may deter some from registering but not necessarily the catastrophic change Peter suggests. If the law does change to require an NI number we will all need to know where people can find it.
  
  Where he is certainly right is in emphasising that anything which makes registration more complicated is a real threat to democracy – and that beefing up councils’ electoral registration operations is far more likely to be effective than party volunteers knocking doors specifically for this purpose (though checking the household’s entry on the register for missing names with any Labour supporter will need to become second nature for everyone doing voter i/d).
Redshift1

Providing your NI number would deter people from registering for all manner of reasons. It is an obvious example of voter suppression aimed at lower income households.

Government should challenge itself to have the highest level of voter registration possible. At the moment it is an admirable rate compared to other Western countries. The Tories want to lower voter registration because they know it will harm Labour more than them. If Labour wins in 2015 it will have to tear up anything along these lines. It is disenfranchisement plain and simple.
Dave_Costa

(Corrected – to refer to Paul rather than Peter Wheeler)The fine is an excellent example for the argument that certainty of punishment is the most effective deterrent – almost no-one gets taken to court so the potential fine has no effect. A more certain penalty – which some wise EROs choose to highlight – is being cut off from most forms of credit if you are not on the register (those offering credit are the only people outside politics given access to the unedited register). I’m sceptical about the council tax argument – but we would certainly have more people registered if EROs used their power under the PPERA to check up on those paying council tax and/or using council services who aren’t on the electoral register.The threat posed by the switch to individual registration and the additional problem caused by the NI number requirement are the main points. On the NI number I think Paul overstates a bit – I’m part of that huge majority who don’t know their NI number but like everyone in work (or on a company pension) I can find it quite quickly on a pay slip when I need it. Is the same true of state pension and benefit documents – if so, the use of the NI number is an unacceptable nuisance which may deter some from registering but not necessarily the catastrophic change Paul suggests. If the law does change to require an NI number we will all need to know where people can find it.Where he is certainly right is in emphasising that anything which makes registration more complicated is a real threat to democracy – and that beefing up councils’ electoral registration operations is far more likely to be effective than party volunteers knocking doors specifically for this purpose (though checking the household’s entry on the register for missing names with any Labour supporter will need to become second nature for everyone doing voter i/d).
PaulHalsall

At least everyone who is unemployed or on benefits knows their NI number (it is on every piece of communication).

Perhaps that should give the Tories some pause.

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