Parties face new challenge out on the campaign trail

Published on Wednesday 18 November 2009 20:09

WITH trust in politics at its lowest ebb for many years, the phrase "getting the vote out" has become a mantra for electoral campaign managers seeking to shore up their position in the face of dwindling voter interest.

With that in mind, news that the number of voters registered to cast their ballot by post in the recent Glasgow North East by-election had more than doubled since the last election could be seen as a welcome boost for political engagement, especially when the total number stood at 6,065 – 10 per cent of the entire eligible electorate.

But in the immediate aftermath of its crushing defeat at the hands of Labour, the SNP declared itself unhappy with the postal vote increase because of a late surge in applications. This, it said, had not allowed it time to visit each of the voters on the register.

The reaction was typical of the lingering suspicion that still surrounds postal voting, one not helped by several high-profile cases of election fraud uncovered in recent years. In May, six men were jailed for up to four and a half years for masterminding a postal voting scam in a local election in Slough in 2007. In 2005, an electoral court in Birmingham heard how residents and postal workers were bribed or threatened to hand over voting forms during a local election campaign 12 months earlier. And in 2004, a failed experiment saw local and European elections in north-east England conducted exclusively by post, a campaign that saw widespread allegations of fraud.

Despite this, postal voting generally is on the up in the UK. The number of people registering to vote by post has risen in each successive election in the past five years. In the 2001 general election, 4 per cent of the electorate voted by post. By 2005, this had increased to 12.1 per cent – some four million people.

And with a recent action plan mooted by the Ministry of Justice for the Treasury outlining proposals to close thousands of temporary polling stations during elections to save money, the reliance on the postal votes system is likely to increase.

"Postal voting is important because it gives people a choice about how they cast their vote," explains an Electoral Commission spokesman. "That is going to mean that people who might not normally be able to get involved in an election can get involved. The choice it gives people is a good thing."

He adds: "It has been on the increase in the past few years, but Scotland has lagged behind Britain in postal vote uptake, but recent by-elections show it is increasing." And no wonder – many party activists now see it as a cornerstone of their campaign, ensuring a core level of support turns out on polling day.

One Labour Party source points out that turnout among postal voters is significantly higher than the rest of the electorate: "It presents a challenge for political parties – they need to find new, more modern ways to canvass and try and persuade postal voters to choose their party." He adds: "A political party that does not have an organisational strategy for postal voters is simply ignoring a significant part of the electorate.

"Labour treats the day that postal votes are scheduled to land on doorsteps as if it were polling day, with a similar level of activists on the ground talking to postal voters and encouraging them to support our candidates. This paid off in Glasgow North East and in Glenrothes."

Despite this importance to the parties, the system is still viewed with scepticism by some. Earlier this year, Sir Christopher Kelly, now leading the investigation into MPs' expenses, warned that since the system was expanded in 2006, it had become more vulnerable to fraud and the government should move towards individual voter registration, similar to the one in place in Northern Ireland, where voters must supply a date of birth, signature and National Insurance number.

That was also recommended by the Electoral Commission in a report last August, which said the UK election system was "stretched to breaking point", with its antiquated canvass of voters done on a household-by-household basis.

Despite this dire prognosis, the Electoral Commission is keen to play down the instances of voter fraud: "We have produced a recent report on the local elections in England in 2008, that looked at electoral fraud," explains the organisation's spokesman. "That showed electoral fraud is nowhere near as widespread as it is assumed to be. It is very rare. Obviously, we want every single vote to be cast securely and one incident is too much, but it is not as widespread as the perception is. To address this perception, what we shouldn't do is deny people the choice of a postal vote, we should tighten up the system."

Gradually, it seems the system is being changed to address these concerns. Under the auspices of the Electoral Administration Act 2006, voters must now provide a signature and date of birth on postal vote registrations, details are then checked against the submitted ballots. This arrangement was first used in Scotland during the Glenrothes by-election in 2008, a poll marred, ironically, by the disappearance of the electoral register and it was subject to criticism by the Electoral Commission for the counting of the postal returns.

Things were taken a stage further by the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009, which provides for, among other things, a voluntary system of individual electoral registration in the UK from July 2010. That will eventually become compulsory in 2015.

"In the next few years, every single person will have to fill out their own form, providing date of birth, signature and NI number," explains the Electoral Commission. "It is a big task, and you have to make sure the system is introduced properly. You don't want people to fall off the register because things are changing so quickly."

The Labour source adds: "It will be important that this is introduced in such a way that it does not significantly reduce the number of people registering and that is why it will be gradually introduced and only done so in conjunction with a registration drive."

The new rules could also be introduced alongside other forms of encouraging voter turnout. Concepts such as e-voting and voting by text have long been mooted and were deployed in sporadic pilot projects by various UK local authorities over the past few years.

The Electoral Commission also recommended looking at opening polling stations for longer and considering holding elections at weekends. Its spokesman says: "In our recent European parliamentary report, we asked people who didn't vote what would make them more likely to vote, around a third said weekend voting would help. That is a significant factor."

It appears, however, that the appetite for such wholesale – and expensive – change is not overwhelming, especially in the face of looming public sector cuts. "Whilst alternative voting options are interesting we believe it is important to ensure the current system works effectively and engages voters before moving on to further change," says an SNP spokeswoman.

Her Conservative counterpart adds: "We are not persuaded by the other suggestions to expand voting, such as e-voting or polling in supermarkets. The key is to engage the electorate who want to vote using existing means."