Clause 4 - Electoral identity card
Electoral Fraud (Northern Ireland) Bill
6:45 pm
Mr Des Browne (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Northern Ireland Office; Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Labour)
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her contribution. However, if she thinks that that is my position, she misunderstands me. I do not know when and if Parliament may decide to move to electronic voting. We have had significant reform of the electoral system throughout the United Kingdom in the previous Parliament. I suspect that before we embark on further changes we shall want that to bed down to see how it works. The next time Parliament turns its attention to electoral law, it may do what many have been crying out for in this debate: consolidate the law to make the position clearer than it is at present. However, I have no crystal ball in relation to that.
It is interesting that the hon. Lady chose time limits—not quite arbitrarily, but from the Bill—in order to illustrate her point. I have had some discussions through my officials with those who are responsible for contracting for and designing the Translink card. That card has an electronic chip in it, which is to be used for other purposes: accounting by individuals to whom it is granted. It is not to be used for voting purposes.
Interestingly, I understand that the most robust card that was appropriate has an electronic chip with a life of only five years. I have not examined whether we could at this stage produce a card with an electronic chip that could be used for voting purposes, if and when the technology became available. However, it would be somewhat ironic if we were to go to the expense of issuing the best cards that we could now, with a life of only five years, and found that the voting process did not catch up with the technology during that period.
Looking at time limits illustrates why the inclusion of such a chip is probably not in our practical interests. It is probably not useful to add a chip to the card when its purpose is identification of those who will carry it as eligible to vote. There will be no electronic voting and so no purpose for the chip. It may well turn out to be a useless expense. It may run out of life before it could be used for anything else.