New Clause 2 - Activities of polling agents
Electoral Fraud (Northern Ireland) Bill
6:00 pm
I support the new clause, to which I originally contributed slightly different wording. My version has been amalgamated as though it were exactly the same as the new clause, which confuses me because my version read:
``The marked copies of the register of electors and of the list of proxies who have voted''.
The three words ``who have voted'' are not included in the new clause, but that does not detract from its intentions.
The hon. Member for Belfast, East has described how election results can be changed or the fortunes of candidates altered by information leaving the polling station prior to the close of the poll, which has been almost ``traditional'' in Northern Ireland. That method has recently been stigmatised as a way in which certain results can be achieved, but that was always the case. However, it has become endemic and more organised for reasons that we have rehearsed on many occasions in Committee. The release of information from the polling station, which the new clause tries to prevent, is currently illegal. I was attempting to address an entirely different situation whereby the presiding officers' marked registers, which show who has or has not voted. They are returned to the electoral officer and are available to the public subsequent to the election, which is an entirely different set of circumstances.