Clause 3 - Absent votes and declarations of identity
Electoral Fraud (Northern Ireland) Bill
5:45 pm
Mr Des Browne (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Northern Ireland Office; Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Labour)
I assure the hon. Gentleman that he has misunderstood the amendment. The Bill already requires the checking of the signature and the amendment would add the provision under which the date of birth would be checked. I was encouraged to do that on Second Reading by certain contributors to the debate, a suggestion which at first I rejected. I was told that paragraph (ba) would become paragraph (bb). If it is of any assistance to the hon. Gentleman, that may explain why he thought that the provision would disappear.
Amendment No. 48 amends rule 45 of the parliamentary election rules in schedule 1 to the Representation of the People Act 1983. Its effect is that a postal ballot paper shall not be deemed to be duly returned unless the accompanying declaration of identity states the date of birth of the elector and the returning officer is satisfied that the date stated corresponds with the date supplied to the chief electoral officer on registration and on the elector's application for a postal vote.
The chief electoral officer will be able to check that both the date of birth and the signature on an elector's declaration of identity accompanying the postal ballot paper corresponds with the date and signature supplied by that elector on registration. I acknowledge again that the amendments are contrary to my position on Second Reading. However, I have reconsidered the matter and I now believe that the chief electoral officer should be given as much useful information as possible to enable him to check absent vote applications against the information that an elector will be required to provide on registration. Amendments Nos. 45 to 48 should further assist the chief electoral officer in detecting fraudulent absent vote applications.