I beg to move amendment 38, page 9, line 12, at end insert—
‘(1A) In section 13(4), at end add “provided that the registration officer shall not make any such changes if an election specified in section 13B(4) is scheduled to take place within 30 days of publication of the revised version of the register.”.’.
The amendment is small, but important. Clause 15 will amend the Representation of the People Act 1983 to provide for two interim publication dates when an
election is pending on which notices of alteration of the electoral register must be published. The intention behind amendment 38 is to counter electoral fraud.
Unfortunately, if someone was so inclined, they would find it relatively straightforward to add a small number of electors to the register fraudulently over several months. The odds of such fraud being detected reduce in proportion to any reduction in the time available between the publication of the electoral register and an election. I am told that this was part of the problem in the 2007 Slough postal votes fraud. The chances of detection are also reduced if the electors added mid-year are new to the register, because the situation will not be apparent from the register itself.
The police commissioner elections will take place in November, just a matter of days after the publication of a wholly new register. We are keen to ensure that that does not become a pattern, because it is not especially good practice. I say that not just on behalf of the Labour party, but for the benefit of all political parties, because we all have the role of engaging with the democratic process and making a case to secure votes in elections. Such a situation does not give time for parties’ local activists to detect suspicious new registrations through the numbering system employed by electoral registration officers.
While this might be a small issue in the scheme of things, we are making an important practical point from the perspective of not only the organisation of political parties, but the detection of fraud. We are especially concerned to avoid a repeat of what happened in Slough in 2007.