Lords Amendment

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 4:13 pm on 16 March 2004.

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Photo of Lord Rennard Lord Rennard Liberal Democrat 4:13, 16 March 2004

My Lords, with great respect to the noble Lord the Minister, there is one very fundamental and major flaw in his argument about the declaration of identity. Just five days ago, your Lordships' House agreed without a murmur of protest to the Government's proposed regulations for the conduct of elections in June. Indeed, I understand there was no objection whatever in another place. Five days ago we considered the regulations for the combined elections on 10 June. Within those regulations, three pages set out, in some detail, the requirement for all postal votes that are to be applied for to be returned with an accompanying declaration of identity, signed by a witness, to confirm that the person returning the postal vote is the person who should be returning that vote. That is the rule the Government have proposed—we have agreed and the Commons have agreed—should apply in eight, nine or 10 of the 12 regions across the United Kingdom in these elections. There was not a murmur of protest anywhere that this should continue to be the system for checking against postal vote fraud.

The first part of my amendment therefore simply insists that the same safeguards should apply where is it even more necessary—where postal votes are delivered to every voter irrespective of whether they have requested one. Without it, it would be all too easy to scoop up the votes delivered to places such as homes in multiple occupation, where you can sign that you are the voter and then return those votes. The declaration of identity with a witness signature means that you must get somebody else with different handwriting who must sign and confirm their address to certify that you are the person entitled to return that vote. Without the system of individual voter registration I referred to earlier, I believe that this process remains an essential safeguard everywhere, not just where postal ballots have to be applied for. It is for the sake of consistency rather than for changing the rules that I advocate this system.

It has of course been suggested that it may be harder for disabled people to get a witness signature than for non-disabled people. I do not believe that argument to have any real basis in logic. Even a disabled person living alone will surely see some other person—perhaps a carer—in the fortnight that they have to vote. If, very sadly, they do not, one wonders quite how the postal vote without a witness signature could be returned in any event.

I have also heard it suggested that the witness signature may be another measure that undermines the secrecy of the ballot, a point about which we are generally concerned with all postal voting. Those of us familiar with the process of voting by post—indeed, I always vote by post—will know that the ballot paper itself is enclosed in a separate envelope so that nobody witnessing the voter's signature on a separate declaration of identity should actually see the ballot paper itself.

I accept that the second part of the amendment is rather more experimental, but I find rather strange the argument in another place that we should not do this because it is experimental when the whole purpose of piloting voting systems is to experiment. Throughout all these debates there has been much speculation about the level of fraud. One way of assessing the scale of the problem is by trying to alert people when their ballot paper has been received by the returning officer. This may help to allay fears that their vote has actually been received in time. It will also arouse suspicion if someone knows that a ballot paper that they did not in fact receive and complete has been returned without their knowledge. I beg to move.

Moved, as an amendment to the Motion that the House do not insist on its Amendment No. 3, to which the Commons have disagreed for their reason numbered 3A, leave out "not".—(Lord Rennard.)