Representation of the People Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 6:15 pm on 29 February 2000.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Lord MacKay of Ardbrecknish Lord MacKay of Ardbrecknish Shadow Deputy Leader of the House of Lords 6:15, 29 February 2000

My Lords, this is an exploratory amendment which seeks to allow us to spend a few minutes discussing and exploring electronic counting and voting. Obviously it is related to the previous debate. It is different in that I hope we can address only the concept of voting machines and the like.

There are two reasons why the Government may well want to move in this direction. First, if we are allowed to vote in more than one place, there will have to be some form of electronic communication between the places to ensure that we do not vote in more than one place. I can see me dashing around all the places at which I am entitled to vote during the course of the afternoon and registering my vote in each one of them. The current system of scoring a name off the register would not deal with that. Polling stations, of course, would need to be linked up electronically. I wonder where we are on that matter. Are any of the pilot schemes and local authorities going down that kind of road? Do they have the electronic machinery in place to allow them to do so and to ensure that security is up to scratch?

The second point concerns the matter of going into a polling station and, instead of the traditional method, voting electronically. I presume that that would lead on to electronic counting. I presume that the Government do not have any intention of carrying out electronic counting on the back of the traditional ballot paper. That would seem to be a pretty pointless exercise. We will get to electronic counting when we get to electronic machines.

I have agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, to sponsor an exhibition on Thursday--this is advertising time--in Committee Room 4, between 4 o'clock and 7.30 p.m., on electronic voting machines. I regret to say that it is not a British company but a Japanese company that deals in these matters. We thought it reasonable that your Lordships and Members of the other place should have a chance to see the equipment.

I should like to explore with the Minister how he sees these matters advancing. What electronic gadgetry will be employed in the pilots? I see from a Written Answer to the noble Lord, Lord Hardy of Wath, on 1st February that a number of applications for electronic voting have been received. How many of those have been accepted and what are their details, as far as the Minister can give them? We are interested in all these matters because I have little doubt that we shall go down the road of electronic voting. We shall have to ensure that as we go down that road we do not run into problems of security and so on which we have, at least by and large, dealt with in the voting systems that we are used to. I beg to move.