United Kingdom

Articles about voting issues in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Date set for recount of Glasgow ward after votes not included | STV

May 142012

A date has been set for a recount of votes in a Glasgow City Council ward after it emerged hundreds of ballots had not been included in the official count. Local authority elections took place on May 3 but it emerged last week that some votes in the Langside ward were not added to the final tally of votes in Glasgow. A recount of the whole ward is set to take place at around 4pm on Tuesday which could change the overall results. Returning officer George Black and senior officers involved in the count have agreed to forgo their fee from the election to pay for the recount. Read More »

Election recount for Glasgow after votes in ballot box not included | STV

May 112012

Glasgow City Council is set to hold a recount for a city ward after it emerged hundreds of votes cast had not been included in the official count. The mistake came to light after the Battlefield Primary ballot box in Langside was registered as having no votes. It is thought that the box contains around 385 votes, which although scanned and registered, were not added to the final tally. The missing votes could be enough to change the overall result for the ward. Glasgow City Council is now seeking court approval to look at the votes and hold a recount. Read More »

Local elections: Council and mayoral voting under way | BBC News

May 042012

Voters are going to the polls for local elections in England, Wales and Scotland – and to elect mayors in London, Liverpool and Salford. More than 4,700 seats are up for grabs on 128 English councils, most of which were last contested in 2008. Every seat on Scotland’s 32 unitary authorities is up for election and the make-up of 21 unitary authorities in Wales will also be decided. Referendums on whether to elect a mayor are being held in 10 English cities. Read More »

London mayoral election: Battle of the buses | CNN.com

May 032012

To an outsider, Thursday’s contest to elect the next mayor of London would appear to be a fight between two larger-than-life characters — known best by their first names — for control of the city’s famous red buses. Among a wide field of candidates, only these two men have any realistic chance of taking a starring role at this summer’s Olympic Games in London: Conservative Party incumbent Mayor Boris Johnson, 47, and his 66-year-old nemesis, Labour left-winger and former Mayor Ken Livingstone. Both men have devoted their energies to transport — and attacking each other viciously on the issue, as well as on their complex personal tax arrangements. With his distinctive nasal south London accent, Livingstone rose to fame in the early 1980s as leader of the Greater London Council. Livingstone — populist, socialist, environmentalist — was one of the few who stood up to Margaret Thatcher, the Conservative prime minister at the time, earning him the moniker “Red Ken.” Read More »

Scottish council election: Will your vote count? | BBC News

Apr 252012

All you have to do is vote. A sophisticated electronic system will take care of the rest. Where have we heard that before? In 2007 the message was the same: a complex voting system would be tamed by technology. Electronic counting – e-counting – would deliver election results which were secure, fast and accurate. Instead we got fiasco. Some counting machines initially refused to do their job. Thousands of voters found the ballot papers confusing. In some places the design of the papers was changed at the last minute. About 140,000 ballots were rejected as supposedly spoiled or blank. To cap it all, BBC Scotland then revealed that the overwhelming majority of those rejected votes had been ruled void automatically by the machines: no human had ever been involved in the process. And yet the 2007 burach was born from the best of intentions. Read More »

Welsh voters could be given right to recall AMs and force by-elections | WalesOnline

Apr 242012

Welsh voters could gain the right to recall their AMs who are guilty of crimes and force a by-election, according to the leader of the House of Commons. Sir George Young has confirmed that the UK Government will consider extending legislation, which would give citizens the power to recall MPs, to cover members of the National Assembly and the other devolved bodies. Under the proposals, a by-election will be held if at least 10% of people on a constituency’s electoral register sign a recall petition. However, petitions will only be triggered under two strictly defined situations where an MP is convicted in the United Kingdom of an offence and receives a custodial sentence of 12 months or less or when the House of Commons resolves that an MP should be recalled. Read More »

MP Martin Vickers backs call for new powers to recall elected representatives | This is Grimsby

Apr 212012

Cleethorpes MP Martin Vickers has backed calls for the introduction of new powers that will allow voters to recall MPs. The Conservative MP has signed a Parliamentary petition, known as an Early Day Motion, welcoming the Coalition Agreement commitment to introduce a power of recall for constituents to recall their MPs. However, the motion expresses disappointment that a recall vote will only happen if the Committee On Standards And Privileges deems an MP to be “guilty of serious wrongdoing”. Read More »

'Laziness' not grounds for MP recall, says Nick Clegg | BBC News

Apr 202012

MPs should not be stripped of their seats for political reasons or “laziness” under plans for “recall” elections, Nick Clegg has said. MPs accused of serious wrongdoing could be forced to stand down and face a by-election if enough voters demand it. But the deputy PM said “recall” must be “a backstop sanction rather than something that would be used – or abused – for political purposes”. He told a committee of MPs he did not want it to become a “kangaroo court”. Proposals to introduce recall elections were drawn up by all three main parties at Westminster in the wake of the the 2009 expenses scandal. But political and constitutional reform committee chairman, Labour MP Graham Allen, said the idea, contained in a draft bill, was unpopular with MPs who believed Mr Clegg was “fighting yesterday’s battle”. Read More »

Galloway Beats Labour in U.K. Parliament Election Upset | Businessweek

Mar 312012

George Galloway, who was expelled from the U.K. Labour Party under Prime Minister Tony Blair over his opposition to the Iraq War, was unexpectedly re-elected to the House of Commons in a special election in northern England. Galloway, running for the Respect Party, took 56 percent of the vote in yesterday’s election in the Bradford West district. He beat Labour, the main opposition party in the Commons, which previously held the seat, into second place. Labour’s candidate, Imran Hussain, took 25 percent. Jackie Whiteley of Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives came third with 8.4 percent. Bradford West had the third highest proportion of Muslim residents of any electoral district at the time of the 2001 census, at 37.6 percent. Galloway, who was expelled from Labour in 2003, took Bethnal Green and Bow in east London, the second most Muslim constituency, from the party on an anti-war ticket in 2005. He failed to win a seat in the Commons in 2010. Read More »

Election watchdog's concern over Scottish referendum | Channel 4 News

Mar 292012

The concerns emerge in the minutes of private meetings held by the commission, which have been released to Channel 4 News under the Freedom of Information Act. They show the watchdog does not believe the Scottish government is proposing to give it the power to have proper oversight of the referendum. The documents also reveal the electoral commission “does not favour” holding the poll on a Saturday and that it believes it would “not be acceptable” for the Scottish government to test the fairness of the referendum question itself. Read More »

Labour calls for electoral commission inquiry | The Irish Times

Mar 282012

British Prime Minister David Cameron is desperately trying to stave off an official inquiry by the electoral commission into Conservative Party fundraising, after a top official was forced to resign for improperly offering access to him. The battle between Conservatives and the Labour Party on the issue now centres on the electoral commission, after former Labour justice secretary Jack Straw wrote to it demanding an official inquiry. If such an inquiry were to go ahead and have negative findings, it could have a devastating impact on Tory fortunes. Consequently, Number 10 is keen to do everything possible to ensure that one is not ordered. Last night, the electoral commission was keeping its counsel. In his letter to the commission, Mr Straw said the Tory co-treasurer Peter Cruddas and former party staffer Sarah Southern had broken rules simply by listening to undercover reporters offering to funnel Middle Eastern money to the party. Read More »

Cash-for-access: Cameron meetings with donors to remain private | The Guardian

Mar 272012

Francis Maude, outside 10 Downing Street, which he says is David Cameron's private residence

The government has insisted that it will not disclose details of private meetings between David Cameron and Conservative party donors in the wake of claims by the party’s treasurer that large cash payments could secure intimate dinners with the prime minister. Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, said demands for lists of visitors to Cameron’s flat in Downing Street were unreasonable, but insisted the party had nothing to hide. The Commons Speaker, John Bercow, is likely to accede to Labour requests for an urgent government statement on the issue. The opposition has already demanded an independent investigation into the claims. Tony Blair’s former chief fundraiser, Lord Levy, who called for private meetings at Downing Street to be revealed, said he was not aware of any such meetings having taken place at No 10 or Chequers when Blair was prime minister. Read More »

Homeless targeted in voter registration drive in Scotland | The Press Association

Mar 192012

A new campaign aims to encourage homeless people to sign up to vote in this year’s council elections. Housing and homeless charity Shelter Scotland has teamed up with the Electoral Commission for the initiative. As well as urging homeless people to register to vote, it will encourage those in temporary accommodation and people renting properties to put their name on the electoral roll. Research by the Electoral Commission last April found only 56% of those living in rented accommodation were registered to vote, compared with 88% of owner occupiers. Andy O’Neill, head of the Electoral Commission in Scotland, said people living in temporary accommodation may not realise they can still register to vote using their temporary address. Read More »

Electoral Commission to take on ‘statutory’ role in Scottish independence referendum | Scotsman.com

Mar 092012

The Electoral Commission will have a “statutory” role in over-seeing the independence referendum, the SNP confirmed during The Scotsman Conference on the conduct of the poll. Bruce Crawford, cabinet secretary for strategy, said: “We are happy to work with the Electoral Commission and to put that on a statutory basis.” Addressing the conference, Electoral Commissioner for Scotland John McCormick said the setting of any question would be for parliamentarians to decide on. However, Mr McCormick said that if the Electoral Commission was to advise a change of wording, it “raises issues” for those politicians to consider. Read More »

Boundary Commission battle of the boundaries - what can you find? | guardian.co.uk

Mar 072012

The Boundary Commission has just published more than 40,000 responses to the proposed changes to English parliamentary boundaries. Judging from the objections from MPs alone, there are a lot of angry people out there. Help us find the key battles going on in your area. Read More »

Data-matching: Electoral Commission throws a spanner in the database | politics.co.uk

Mar 022012

Government plans to meddle with who gets to vote in British elections appear to have suffered another setback today. All parties support moves to switch from household registration to individual electoral registration (IER). But there are fears six million voters could fall off the list of those eligible to vote, and the coalition has been under serious pressure to come up with ways to fix this. Its solution is ‘data-matching’, which would see the government use its other databases – for driving licences, benefit payments and the like – to retain up to two-thirds of the current electoral register. Ministers have placed great store by this – constitutional reform minister Mark Harper, as recently as February 9th, stated: “I am confident we now have a set of proposals behind which we can all unite.” Not so much. The first pilot scheme covering 22 local authorities, the Electoral Commission regretfully informs the public today, delivered inconclusive results. They recommend “well-constructed trials” to test data-matching further. Ouch! Read More »

Scottish local election: UK ministers 'silent' over vote power plea | BBC

Jan 212012

Westminster has been “silent” in response to calls for Holyrood to have the power to run all Scottish elections, an SNP minister has claimed. Derek Mackay said the Scottish government had asked UK ministers to devolve these responsibilities. But he said it had received no response from the UK government. Transferring powers to run local council and Holyrood elections was a recommendations of the Gould report into the 2007 election fiasco. In May of that year, voters were left confused because of the design and number of the ballot papers. There were also failings in the electronic counting system which saw thousands of ballot papers for the Scottish and local elections rejected.

Electoral musical chairs comes to Wales - will voters and politicians lose out? | Toby James Blog

Jan 142012

Electoral law is in the news again in the UK, and this time it’sWales’ turn. Radical plans to reduce the number of constituencies in Wales were published by the Boundary Commission this week. But what do they mean for Wales? One of the first Bills introduced to the UK Parliament by the coalition government formed in May 2010 involved reducing the number of MPS from 650 to 600. The Coalition justified this on the basis that it would save the country money. The reputation of MPs was low at the time on the back of the expenses scandal so it was popular policy. However, partisan calculations were not doubt present as well. Read More »

Still no voting rights in UK for British expats | Expat - My Telegraph

Dec 172011

A year ago I wrote about one man’s crusade to force the UK government to allow British expats to vote in parliamentary elections after a 15 year absence from the country. Recently James Preston, a British fund manager living in Madrid, took the matter to the High Court with the assistance of a legal firm working on a pro bono basis but his case was summarily dismissed. He intends to appeal.

In effect this ruling means that current legislation continues to penalise Britons choosing to live abroad, and could disenfranchise 5.5 million British expats from voting in UK parliamentary elections in the future. Other countries in the EU such as France and Germany and those such as the USA do not treat their citizens with such derogation. Read More »

Expats denounce Government over voting rights | Telegraph

Nov 282011

A Government letter which claims a British pensioner fighting for the right to vote in general elections from abroad is “not a victim” has provoked outrage among expats. The letter was sent from the Foreign Office to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, in relation to a case brought against the UK by expat Harry Shindler. Mr Shindler, a 90-year old World War Two veteran who lives in Italy, believes that the UK’s current policy of depriving expats of their vote after 15 years spent abroad is discriminatory, and the ECHR is currently considering his claim.

In the letter, a spokesman for the Government said that it stood by the opinion that the “applicant is not a ‘victim’, according to principles established in the case-law in the court” and argued that if Mr Shindler wished to vote, “it was open to him to take Italian citizenship and acquire a right to vote in elections to the Italian national parliament.” Read More »

Groups Oppose Suspension of Bill On Diaspora Voting | allAfrica.com

Nov 012011

UK-based Nigerian groups yesterday said the suspension of the Bill on Diaspora voting by the National Assembly was a “collective disenfranchisement of innocent citizens”. The bill, which seeks to allow Nigerians in the Diaspora to vote in future elections, suffered a setback in the House of Representatives as it was suspended for further input.

Most of the lawmakers who spoke on the bill, sponsored by Rep. Abike Dabiri-Erewa (ACN Lagos), said the country could not afford the cost of conducting such an election. ”Clearly, this is collective disenfranchisement of a group of innocent citizens by our government on the basis of their abode,” Ms Jenny Okafor, President of Nigerian Women in Diaspora Leadership Forum, said in an interview in London. Read More »

Labour slam plans to reform voting system | Birmingham Mail

Oct 032011

Labour have slammed plans to reform the voting system to prevent a repeat of the massive fraud which led to Birmingham being called a “banana republic”. Harriet Harman, the party’s deputy leader, said the proposed changes were a Tory plot to stop people voting. She was speaking at Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool, which ended yesterday.

The Government wants to change the rules following a high-profile court case in 2005 when Judge Richard Mawrey said election cheating in Birmingham would “disgrace a banana republic”, as he dealt with five Labour councillors guilty of vote rigging.

The Electoral Commission, the official body responsible for overseeing elections, called for an end to household registration, which allows one person to fill a form demanding polling cards for a number of people. Read More »

Why the Electoral Commission disagrees with Harman on voter registration | politics.co.uk

Sep 302011

voter-registration-isn-t-the-most-straightfor

Harriet Harman wrapped up today’s Labour conference with a speech attacking the coalition’s planned voter registration changes. What she didn’t mention is that the independent Electoral Commission is broadly in favour of the idea.

I’ve been going through its submission to the Commons’ political and constitutional reform committee, in which it states, in no uncertain terms:

“The Electoral Commission is clear that introducing IER is the right thing to do, because of the need:
• to improve the security of the system, making it less vulnerable to fraud
• to recognise people’s personal responsibility for this important stake in our democracy
• for a system that people recognise as up-to-date, not rooted in Victorian ideas about households and ‘heads of household’” Read More »

The quango where they top up their phones and buy leaving cards with your cash | Mail Online

Aug 292011

The election watchdog’s staff used taxpayers’ money to buy fruit for their lunches, credit for their mobile phones and a leaving card for a colleague, it was revealed yesterday. The Electoral Commission used government-issued credit cards to pay for everything from milk to London Underground fares.

Thousands of pounds were charged to the cards for conference rooms just a few miles from the quango’s head office. Staff at the commission, which is charged with ensuring clean and efficient elections, racked up a total of £345,553.70 on the cards in the financial year that ended in March.

The period included last year’s general election, which saw the organisation and its head, Jenny Watson, receive heavy criticism over the late-night queues that developed outside some polling stations, preventing many voters from casting their ballots. Read More »

Why expats should be able to keep their votes | Telegraph

Aug 162011

It was quaintly ironic how President Sarkozy’s decision to reach out to his thousands of expatriate French citizens by giving them proper representation in the French Senate, by way of their own Senators to represent their interests, boomeranged spectacularly when he attempted to impose a tax on second home owners.

As his ministers quite rightly pointed out to him, the hundreds of thousands of French citizens resident and working in countries like the UK, many of whom now owned what had become a “second home” in France, were more than likely due to this legislation to vote against him. And bingo, he performed an incredible U-turn and dropped the tax.

Does this give British citizens now resident in France and elsewhere who after 15 years have lost their right to vote in the UK pause for thought? I do hope so. It shows the power of democracy, and the ability of voting citizens to change legislation. Read More »

Logica tests Scottish e-voting technology | ZDNet UK

Aug 082011

Along with technology supplier Logica it held a dummy run to count 160,000 ballot papers in Perth on Friday. This was the latest stage in testing the system, which uses off-the-shelf software from Opt2Vote.

Aileen Campbell, the Scottish government minister for local government planning, said: “Compared to a manual count which would take at least two to three days, e-counting will be much faster and more transparent. This test is a crucial milestone in the project to make e-counting a reality in 2012.”

Logica is providing the programme management, training services, printing services and more than 40 project and count centre managers for the election under a contract awarded in October 2010. Read More »

Cabinet Office Unveils New UK Voter Registration Process | eGov Monitor

Jul 052011

New steps voters will be required to take to be included on the electoral register are set out today by the Government.

The Individual Electoral Registration White Paper details the process for moving to individual voter registration, replacing the existing system of household registration. The change is designed to modernise the electoral system and tackle fraud.

Mark Harper MP, Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform, said Britain is almost alone in retaining a system of household registration, which is now widely considered to be outdated and vulnerable to fraud. Moving to individual electoral registration will help to ensure our system is more robust against fraud and gives every individual control over whether or not they are included on the register. Read More »

Scottish National Party snub 'means poll will not be policed' | Scotsman.com News

Jun 202011

Funding for the independence referendum campaign will not be properly policed because the SNP is refusing to allow the Electoral Commission to be involved, the UK government has claimed.

The SNP yesterday said it intended to press ahead with plans contained in the 2009 white paper – which state that the Electoral Commission would not have oversight over campaign funding. Instead Holyrood will set up a Scottish Referendum Commission. But yesterday the Conservative Scotland Office minister David Mundell hit out at the SNP’s plans, saying it would “hardly inspire confidence” in the campaign. Read More »

Chair Of Electoral Commission Calls On Government To Consider Central Co-Ordination At Welsh Elections | eGov monitor

Jun 182011

Jenny Watson, Chair of the Electoral Commission and Chief Counting Officer at the recent referendums on the Parliamentary Voting System, and the powers of the Welsh Assembly, will today propose that consideration should be given to introducing greater central coordination of elections, learning from the structure that was in place at those referendums.

The administration of the referendum was significantly different than that at elections with the Commission taking on a central oversight role and the Chief Counting Officer able to direct returning officers and monitor their performance ahead of polling day to achieve best practice. In contrast UK parliamentary general elections are administered locally by returning officers, with no national coordination. The Commission’s role is limited to offering guidance. Read More »

AV referendum: Yes campaign handed thumping defeat | The Guardian

May 082011

Supporters and opponents alike have acknowledged that the alternative vote would never be introduced for Westminster elections after the proposal received a thumping defeat in the national referendum. With 439 of the 440 voting areas counted, the no campaign had established a lead of 68% to 32%, another wounding blow to Nick Clegg, whose Liberal Democrats had secured a referendum as one of their cherished prizes in negotiations with the Conservatives to form the coalition last year.

Matthew Elliott, campaign director of No to AV, said: “Tonight’s result is an emphatic victory, a clear signal from every part of the country that people want to keep our simple, fair and effective system for electing MPs. I believe this result settles the debate over changing our electoral system for another generation.” Read More »

AV Referendum: Voters Deliver Comprehensive Defeat To The Yes Campaign | eGov monitor

May 082011

After a long and twadry campaign on both sides where partisan politics and persoanlities took centre stage, the UK electorate has rejected the Alternative Vote (AV) system by a thumping majority of 67.9% to 32.1%. The final vote tallied at 6,152,607 voted Yes to the Alternative Vote, while 13,013,123 voted No, according to the official Electoral Commission announcement. Only 10 areas in the UK including Islington, Camden, Hackney and Lambeth in London voted for the change to AV.

This hurts the Liberal Democrats and Nick Clegg - the referendum was the prize for joinining a coalition that would have to make tough decisions, hoping a Yes vote would change the political alignment of the country. Instead, they got a crushing defeat and at the hands of the Prime Minister David Cameron. Mr. Cameron joined the campaign barely a month ago and in one month the polls went from favouring Yes to a massive win for the NO campaign. Read More »

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