Electoral Administration Reform

Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 4:44 pm on 16 June 2010.

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Photo of John Leech John Leech Liberal Democrat, Manchester, Withington 4:44, 16 June 2010

I welcome the Minister to his position on the Government Bench.

The Electoral Commission's report highlighted one of the causes of the queues, which was that explanations had to be given to a number of people on why they were eligible to vote in the local elections but not in the general election. Early-day motion 1, which stands in my name, suggests a practical step to ensure that queues are kept to an absolute minimum on election day: we can make sure that a general election does not take place on the same day as another election. That would solve many of the problems related to the difficulty of explaining to people who do not realise that they can vote only in one election and not the other.

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Jason Kitcat
Posted on 30 Jun 2010 11:38 pm (Report this annotation)

And indeed now that fixed term Parliaments are being introduced some element of planning around such an idea can be brought about. Scotland have agreed to separate their Parliament's elections from others.

As long as different voting systems are used at different levels of government, separating the elections seems prudent.