Automatic registration is a very bad idea and by planning to introduce it, the Labour Party is falling into the common trap of considering the electoral register as being only a logistical exercise without considering the wider aspects of electoral integrity and of political manipulation. It seems so obvious to use the data collected by the state as the basis for the electoral register and simply to transfer the state’s data directly on to the electoral register so that there is automatic registration but, unfortunately, such a view and such a system depend on the naïve view that the state is invariably neutral, respects the civil rights of its citizens and can be trusted not to abuse the electoral process. Based on my twenty-five years of experience of electoral practice in thirty-six new and emerging democracies, this is all too often not the case.
Authoritarian regimes, particularly those with directly elected presidents, all too often resort to the visible manipulation of the processes to maintain themselves in power. Sometimes this is by changing the constitution to circumvent term limits and secure additional terms in office, such as practised by Robert Mugabe and Vladimir Putin. But a more subtle method is by removing the civil rights of dissident citizens so that they become “non-citizens” and do not appear on the electoral register. The British state has done precisely this in the case of Shamima Begum lingering stateless for five years in a Syrian refugee camp. I have had to counter this particular practice in a number of former one party states, by insisting that the electoral commission goes through the tedious but democratic process of compiling an independent electoral register.
You may believe that such manipulation could not happen in Britain, but just ponder the attitude of successive recent Home Secretaries towards immigrants. Amongst the thousands of asylum seekers and refugees there are clearly a number who are entitled to be legitimately British citizens and thus to have votes. I doubt very much whether they are prompted to exercise their democratic rights whilst being incarcerated in one way or another by the present government. There are also those who are homeless and living on the streets. They certainly do not appear on the state’s records but they are entitled to be registered and to vote. It has been held by the courts that any deliverable address such as “doorway at 25 The Strand” will suffice for electoral registration. British governments have also attempted to exclude those serving prison terms, even though they may legitimately wish to challenge the laws that have resulted in their convictions. In any case prisoners held on remand are certainly entitled to register and to vote. All this is redolent of the efforts by some southern USA states to inhibit black and other minority citizens from registering.
The last major action taken on UK registration was to change from household to individual registration. This was argued to be logical but it resulted in a significant reduction in numbers registered, particular in regard to students in university accommodation who ceased to be registered by their institutions – one of the groups quoted as having a low level of registration.
Going further, there is other evidence of the state using legislation for party advantage. Recent Conservative governments have manipulated the electoral process for their benefit, such as the requirement to produce ID which reduces turnout – by 6% when introduced earlier in Northern Ireland - but cynically excluded Student Union IDs as being accepted despite these carrying, for instance, the student’s photograph. Bizarrely, even though what little attempts there have been to impersonate voters have centred on postal voting, no ID is needed to vote by post! France ended all postal voting in 1974 on the grounds that it was open to abuse. Those French electors unable to attend a polling station in person can appoint a relative or friend as a proxy. By contrast, in the UK anyone can request a postal vote even though once the ballot is outside the polling station it is insecure. The government also abolished the supplementary vote in mayoral elections hoping thus to enable Conservative candidates to win on a minority vote. It also abolished the Fixed Term Parliament Act to give a Prime Minister the opportunity to choose an election date for party advantage.
Giving the State power over the electoral process is naïve and inherently dangerous. The electoral process must be independent of the state so that the state itself can be held accountable by the electorate. A key component of this independence is the electoral register from which the rest of the electoral process issues. Only if there is a clearly independent electoral commission with sufficient legal powers to stand up to the government can there be a legitimate register and election. We have the worst of all worlds in having an Electoral Commission without sufficient powers to conduct legitimate elections or even to prevent abuses.
To ensure that the ways and means of independently compiling a register under the present rules that is as comprehensive as possible, one should look at the example of Patrick Bradley, the retired Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland, who utilised innovative methods in order to enable individuals to register and who regularly achieved well over 90% of the potential registration.
