Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee Voter ID and Electoral Intimidation

Transcription

1 Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee Voter ID and Electoral Intimidation Item PACAC Question Page VOTER ID 1 The take-up of the free alternative type of ID provided by the Council in each of the five voter-id pilot authorities. (Question 7) 2 The budget for the next round of voter-id pilots in May 2019 and details of how Cabinet Office has assessed the value for money (and what the outcome of the assessment was) of the voter-id proposals against other ways it could spend that money to improve public confidence in elections. (Questions 30, 32) 3 The costs of running local communication campaigns in each five pilot areas. (Question 26) A comprehensive memorandum of the costs of the voter-id pilots that includes: the cost of local communication campaigns and financial and administrative costs for each local authority. (Questions 27,28) 4 Evidence on the impact of voter-id in Northern Ireland. Especially how it has impacted voter turnout. (Question 62) INTIMIDATION 5 Evidence on the reference the Minister made during the hearing about being in public service is already an aggravating factor in certain types of crimes. This point is regarding criminal offenses and electoral intimidation occurring during elections. (Question 79) 6 When discussing intimidation outside a polling station, what would be the definition of outside a polling station, and what would be the size of the radius set out outside a polling station? (Question 85,86, 87) 7 Annex A - Extract from consultation- Intimidation outside a polling station

2 1. The take-up of the free alternative type of ID provided by the Council in each of the five voter-id pilot authorities. Any elector who believed they would be unable to produce the form of identification required to vote was offered a locally issued alternative. Locally issued ID was made available, free of charge, whenever an elector was unsure they were able to produce the required ID, be it photographic or not. The table below shows the deadlines for obtaining a locally issued ID Woking used local elector cards as their council issued ID and received 64 applications. 63 local elector cards were issued. One application was mistakenly made by a postal voter. In Swindon and Watford, the poll card acted as council issued ID; with Swindon issuing 66 replacement poll cards and Watford issuing three replacement poll cards in total. Swindon also offered a process of attestation at the polling station for voters who did not satisfy the requirement to provide ID. In total, 107 voters cast their vote on election day in Swindon through attestation (0.25% of ballots issued). Bromley and Gosport were not required to provide any locally issued forms of identification. 2

3 2. The budget for the next round of voter-id pilots in May The Cabinet Office budget The Cabinet Office budget for last year was 826m and its yearly accounts are published on GOV.UK: 2016/17 Accounts 2017/18 Accounts Cost of elections Nationwide elections (UK parliamentary General Election, Police and Crime Commissioner) and any subsequent by-elections are funded directly from the Consolidated Fund. The Cabinet Office is responsible for managing the funds for England and Wales, whilst Scotland Office is responsible for managing the funds for Scotland. Northern Ireland has its own arrangements in place. Nationwide referendums are also funded from the Consolidated Fund but the responsibility for managing the monies rests with the Electoral Commission (PPER Act 2000). Local elections and local referendums are funded by local authorities who are in turn funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Returning Officers (RO) are entitled by law (RPA 1983) to be reimbursed for their services provided in delivering national polls and any reasonable and necessary expenses incurred for the efficient and effective delivery of those polls. The actual cost for delivering national elections is not known until all ROs election expenses are received and settled. The Cabinet Office scrutinises RO election expenses through its Elections Claims Unit (ECU). The ECU ensures that costs claimed by ROs are eligible, reasonable and necessary for the conduct of the election and adjust the claims as necessary prior to settlement. The table below shows the cost of each European Parliamentary Election (EPE) and General Election from 2009: 3

4 The final cost for the delivery of the 2017 General Election (GE) will not be known until all expenses claims have been settled and paid. Previous elections had some level of combination and therefore conduct costs were in those instances split between the Consolidated Fund and local authorities; the 2017 GE was a fully standalone poll and this is reflected in the higher conduct costs estimated above. The budget for voter ID pilots in 2019 The budget for the 2019 voter ID pilots along with the development and delivery of each of the 48 agreed recommendations from (then) Sir Eric Pickles report into electoral fraud comes under the oversight of Cabinet Office s electoral integrity project board which includes in its membership the Electoral Commission, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and the Association of Electoral Administrators. Voter ID will be part of the range of measures that take place at every election to tackle fraud and protect the vote. Work is underway, including to establish budgets, with the volunteer local authorities who will pilot voter ID and additional measures to protect the postal vote process in Ensuring that each pilot has the right financial support to deliver a successful election in 2019 is essential, as is ensuring that each budget delivers value for money. As for the 2018 voter ID and postal vote pilot scheme the final costs for the 2019 pilots will be published when the scheme is complete. The 2019 costs will be the subject of analysis by the Electoral Commission and Cabinet Office as part of their evaluations of the impact of voter ID. The budget for each pilot authority s voter ID testing will include the anticipated cost, based on the 2018 pilots, of communications, training, IT where applicable and staffing. Cabinet Office, as for the 2018 pilots, will agree a payment schedule with each pilot and the assurance process through which each claim will be made. Both the pilot authorities and Cabinet Office will be stringent in managing the cost of the pilots to ensure value for money and also the best quality evidence of the cost impact of voter ID. We are not prepared to disclose the electoral integrity project budget for 2019 while working through a process of agreeing with each pilot their funding requirement and cost controls. It would be inappropriate to disclose the figure due to commercial sensitivities and would undermine value for money for the taxpayer. I am keen to share the figures, however, at the appropriate moment in the future and in the event any legislation is brought before the House. The costs of the 2018 pilots have been shared and we anticipate that the cost per elector in the 2019 voter ID pilots will be less than in Cost controls for

5 For the 2019 IT enabled poll card pilots Cabinet Office is working closely with each pilot and their supplier, using the experience of the 2018 pilots, to define the scope of the required technical development to be funded by the Cabinet Office. Public confidence in elections Notwithstanding my previous caveats around the budget, during the Committee hearing I committed to providing you with an assessment of the value for money of voter ID against other methods of improving public confidence. This assessment is included here. Voter ID is one of a package of measures to improve the security and resilience of the electoral system, strengthen our democracy and ensure that people have confidence in our democratic processes. We are working on a number of fronts to ensure the integrity and inclusiveness of elections and therefore promote public confidence. These include having looked closely at the Committee on Standards in Public Life s report on intimidation in public life and conducting a consultation on bringing forward additional electoral penalties for people who are convicted of offences. We will report on the outcome of that consultation early in the New Year. We are also seeking to progress recommendations about digital campaigning and public information to ensure that voters are given information to base their decisions on when at the ballot box. We are also continuing to look at the recommendations made by Lord Pickles in his report Securing the Ballot. The Government is keen to progress changes that tackle the potential for fraud and address intimidatory and abusive behaviour when legislative time allows. In other areas, the Government is taking forward work that also supports confidence. We are committed to improving the accessibility of elections for disabled people and the Government 1 published its response to the Call for Evidence on this area earlier in the year. The purpose of the Call for Evidence was to understand the barriers disabled people face in registering to vote and voting, and how to address them. The response was produced in partnership with the Cabinet Office chaired Accessibility of Elections Working Group, which provides expert opinion and advice to the Government on how future elections can be made more accessible from leading charities, NHS clinical specialists and key electoral stakeholders. In addition, we are working with MENCAP to develop an easy read guide which will enable the digital registration service to be even more accessible to users. We have also continued to improve our electoral registration process to make it as accessible as possible to ensure that every voice counts. As part of this we have recently legislated to improve the system of anonymous registration to make it more accessible for survivors of domestic abuse. The changes make it easier for an estimated 12,000 survivors of domestic abuse living in refuges to register to vote anonymously as well as those living elsewhere. We are prioritising reform which puts the voter and the citizen first /Government_response_to_the_Call_for_Evidence_on_Access_to_Elections_.pdf 5

6 3. A comprehensive memorandum of the costs of the voter-id pilots that includes: the cost of local communication campaigns and financial and administrative costs for each local authority. Funding for the net additional cost of piloting voter ID in 2018 has been provided by the Cabinet Office. Breakdown of costs for 2018 The cost of piloting voter ID in each local authority: Bromley: 209, Gosport: 37, Swindon: 515, Watford: 516, Woking: 106, Total : 1,385, These costs include one off development costs to support each pilot s preferred model for voter ID including the use of innovative IT and poll cards. Communications Each local authority designed a communications plan tailored to reach the people in their constituencies. Local authorities evaluated their communications activity and we will use their evaluations to inform the next round of pilots in May The success of the communications activity is clear in the Electoral Commission's evaluation, which found that nearly nine out of ten people (86%) who voted in polling stations said they 2 were aware beforehand that they had to show identification to vote at the polling station. The cost to the Cabinet Office for each awareness raising campaign: Bromley: 128, Gosport: 27, Swindon: 54, Watford: 40, Woking: 101, Total: 352, data/assets/pdf_file/0006/244950/may-2018-voter-identificatio n-pilots-evaluation-report.pdf 6

7 The Electoral Commission typically undertakes centralised national publicity campaigns before all major polls. We expect that the messaging surrounding the new requirement for ID would result in limited additional costs due to the mature and developed communication channels that the Electoral Commission has in place. Evaluation The independent Electoral Commission and the Cabinet Office evaluated and reported on cost in their respective evaluations. Costs for the mixed ID model are based on cost data provided by local authorities Bromley and Gosport; costs for the photographic ID model are based on cost data provided by Woking; and costs for the poll card model are based on cost data provided by Swindon and Watford. Some reported costs were specific to the running of the pilot and would not be incurred during a national election - these costs are identified and excluded in order to model costs of a national 3 roll out in the Cabinet Office evaluation. Cabinet Office projected costs for national rollout Photographic model Photo and Non-photo Barcoded poll cards Between 5.9m and 17.9m per UKPGE. Between 4.6m and 17.1m per UKPGE. Between 4.3m and 20.4m per UKPGE excluding the cost of IT equipment required in polling stations /Electoral_Integrity_Project_-_Local_Elections_2018_-_Evaluation.pdf 7

8 4. Evidence on the impact of voter-id in Northern Ireland. Especially how it has impacted voter turnout. The Chief Electoral Officer of Northern Ireland confirms that they experience no significant issues with the requirement to produce ID in polling stations; it is a well understood and accepted part of polling in Northern Ireland. In a recent report for Democratic Audit UK, Stuart Wilks-Heeg stated that there was no evidence to suggest a fall in turnout, but there was plenty of evidence that fraud declined sharply. At the 2005 UK General Election, just 55 tendered ballots were issued in Northern Ireland, a 94% reduction compared to Report on NI Assembly Elections 2016 Voters continue to remain very positive about their experience of voting, whether in person at a polling station or by post. Nearly all (98%) of those respondents who voted in person at a polling station reported that they were very or fairly satisfied with the voting process with 72% being very satisfied Report on NI Assembly Elections 2017 A total of 1,254,709 people were registered to vote in the Northern Ireland Assembly election on 2 March ,812,783 votes were included in the count, representing an overall turnout of 64.8%.This was a 10 percentage point increase compared with May 2016 and was the highest turnout since the first Northern Ireland Assembly election in As was the case at the May 2016 Northern Ireland Assembly election, the most common reason given for voting at the March 2017 election related to civic duty (68% in 2017 and 67% in 2016). However there was a significant increase in the number of people who said they voted to get a change, rising from 7% in May 2016 to 25% in March It is possible that this may have contributed to the higher turnout at the March election. As was the case in May 2016 many of those who didn t vote in March 2017 gave circumstantial reasons for not making it to the polling station, such as not having the time or having been too busy (51%). Voters continue to remain very positive about their experience of voting, whether in person at a polling station or by post. Nearly all (97%) of those respondents who voted in person at a polling station reported that they were very or fairly satisfied with the voting process. 8

9 5. Evidence on the reference the Minister made during the hearing about being in public service is already an aggravating factor in certain types of crimes. This point is regarding criminal offenses and electoral intimidation occurring during elections. Aggravating factors Aggravating factors are circumstances which increase the seriousness of a criminal act and, therefore, may be considered as part of the sentencing process, which may result in an increased sentence within the maximum sentence available. Sentencing guidelines, created by the Sentencing Council, include a list of aggravating factors which, if present in an occurrence of an offence, would indicate either a higher than usual level of culpability on the part of the offender, or a greater than usual degree of harm caused by the offence, or sometimes both. Within existing sentencing guidelines, aggravating factors include where an offence is 4 committed against those working in the public sector or providing a service to the public. It is a statutory requirement for the courts to follow guidelines published by the Sentencing Council 5 unless the court is satisfied that it would be contrary to the interests of justice to do so. Accordingly, when sentencing, the courts may consider interference with the democratic process to be an aggravating factor in cases of intimidation. In some cases, aggravating factors are set out in legislation. For example, schedule 21 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 sets out the relevant aggravating factors to be applied in sentencing for the offence of murder. This includes the fact that the victim was providing a public service or performing a public duty as an aggravating factor when determining an appropriate sentence. The new electoral offence of intimidation The proposed new electoral offence seeks to apply electoral sanctions to existing criminal law offences of intimidation, when the offence takes place against a candidate or campaigner during an election period. It is an electoral sanction to be imposed in addition to a criminal sanction. It does not seek to create a new category of aggravating factor. The existing criminal law will continue to apply, unaltered, with the current aggravating factor of an offence committed against those working in the public sector or providing a service to the public to be taken into consideration for the purposes of sentencing for a criminal offence. The purpose of applying electoral sanctions to the offence is to deter intimidatory behaviour during the election period, allowing those engaging in the electoral process to participate actively and to the fullest. 4 Sentencing Guideline Council Overarching Principles: Seriousness. Pg 7, para Section 125 of the Coroners and Justice Act

10 Electoral sanctions are specific to the election process and, as the Committee on Standards in Public Life points out, these sanctions recognise that the offence committed is an offence against the integrity of the electoral process and our democracy. It is therefore appropriate that the sanctions issued relate to privileges within the electoral process. The existing criminal sanctions for the offence will continue to apply, ensuring the punishment will reflect adequately the severity of the crime committed. 10

11 6. When discussing intimidation outside a polling station, what would be the definition of outside a polling station, and what would be the size of the radius set out outside a polling station? This question is in relation to the proposal to recast the offence of undue influence to include intimidation outside polling stations, raised in the consultation paper, Protecting the Debate: Intimidation, Influence and Information. (For further detail, see the extract at Annex A ) This proposal follows recommendation 2 made in the (then) Sir Eric Pickles report, Securing 6 the Ballot: A review into Electoral Fraud. The Government, in its response to the report, agreed with this recommendation. This concern arose mainly from the election petition challenging the election of Mr Lutfur Rahman as Mayor of Tower Hamlets in the Tower Hamlets case. A way to realise this recommendation is to recast the offence so it is clear that the type of behaviour seen in the Tower Hamlets case which took place outside polling stations is included in the offence. It s important to clarify that this proposal does not discourage debate and disagreement or even passionate and enthusiastic campaigning, but seeks to prohibit the kind of intimidatory behaviour that evidently took place in the Tower Hamlets case. In the judgment, Richard Mawrey QC noted: "The court appreciates that many in Tower Hamlets will be disappointed, even horrified, that the 1983 Act does not penalise thuggish conduct at polling stations of the sort that occurred in The conduct that the court has found took place at polling stations on 22 May 2014 would undeniably have amounted to the common law offence of intimidation. Intimidation is what it was and what it was intended to be by those organising it. Those who experienced it described it as intimidation and said that they 7 had been intimidated. In the Tower Hamlets case, there was evidence of this kind of intimidation in the surrounding 8 streets of the polling place. As a result, the consultation paper, Protecting the Debate: Intimidation, Influence and Information, asked the question as to whether intimidation outside polling stations should be specifically included in the offence of undue influence. The definition of outside the polling station 6 6/eric_pickles_report_electoral_fraud.pdf R2: A lower test of intimidation than the one currently set in the Representation of the People Act 1983 should be introduced. 7 [2015] EWHC 1215 (QB), paragraph [2015] EWHC 1215 (QB) Paragraph

12 It is the duty of the Returning Officer to currently ensure campaigning outside the polling station doesn t impede electors access, or constitute intimidatory behaviour. 9 The Electoral Commission, in their Code of Conduct for campaigners, state that campaigners are not to campaign within or impede access to the grounds of the polling place. 3.1 Campaigners should be allowed to put their messages to voters on polling day, including in public spaces outside polling places. Polling station staff and police officers should not seek to discourage or remove campaigners who are otherwise peacefully communicating with voters, as long as they are not within or impeding access to the grounds of the polling place. You should be careful, however, to ensure that your approach is proportionate and should recognise that groups of supporters may be perceived as intimidating by voters. 3.2 Campaigners should keep access to polling places and the pavements around polling places clear to allow voters to enter. The Presiding Officer is responsible for maintaining order in the polling place, and you may be asked to move by polling station 10 staff or police officers if you are impeding access by voters to a polling place. We acknowledge that local authorities use a variety of buildings to hold polls, therefore polling places which house the polling stations vary in size, shape and space. Should this policy be taken forward after the consultation, this point would be considered when determining an appropriate definition of outside a polling station. Advice would also be sought from police, Electoral Commission and Returning Officers. 9 Electoral Commission (2015), Code of Conduct for campaigners, accessed 21/09/ data/assets/pdf_file/0011/179741/code-of-conduct-for-campai gners-2015.pdf 10 Electoral Commission (2015), Code of Conduct for campaigners, accessed 21/09/ data/assets/pdf_file/0011/179741/code-of-conduct-for-campai gners-2015.pdf, pg 5 12

13 Annex A: Extract from consultation- Intimidation outside a polling station 9.1 In December 2016, (then) Sir Eric Pickles published Securing the Ballot: A review into Electoral Fraud. Recommendation 2 of (then) Sir Eric s report advised that a lower test of intimidation than the one currently set in law should be introduced. This concern arose mainly from the election petition challenging the election of Mr Lutfur Rahman as Mayor of Tower Hamlets in the Tower Hamlets case. In that case, allegations of voter intimidation were made including of physical intimidation at polling stations The Election Commissioner in the Tower Hamlets case, had to consider whether the behaviour conducted at polling stations crossed the line into the commission of an offence under the law as set out above. He stated that the current law required a high degree of intimidation to be applied to the voter before that section was engaged The Election Commissioner said there was little doubt that the intention of the activists outside the polling stations was to induce or prevail upon electors to vote in a particular way. He concluded, however, that the behaviour in that case was not such that it involved the use of sufficient force, violence or restraint or sufficient duress to amount to undue influence In the judgment he noted "the court appreciates that many in Tower Hamlets will be disappointed, even horrified, that the 1983 Act does not penalise thuggish conduct at polling stations of the sort that occurred in 2014." He also noted how the conduct that the court has found took place at polling stations on 22 May 2014 would undeniably have amounted to the common law offence of intimidation. Intimidation is what it was and what it was intended to be by those organising it. Those who experienced it 11 described it as intimidation and said that they had been intimidated However, the court did not find the individuals guilty of intimidation under the relevant 12 electoral law, as it stated that the law demands quite a serious level of violence which the court could not be satisfied had been reached In its response, the Government accepted the recommendation of (then) Sir Eric, acknowledging that the current framing of electoral law may not be sufficient to address the type of intimidatory behaviour highlighted in the report The Government is, therefore, proposing to amend the offence of undue influence to include behaviour intended to intimidate voters into voting in a particular way, or prevent them from voting, which takes place either inside or outside polling stations. For the offence to apply, the behaviour would not need to amount to physical force, violence or restraint, but would include behaviour which could reasonably be classed as intimidating. 11 Mr Lutfur Rahman to Mayor of Tower Hamlets (2015), paragraph Mr Lutfur Rahman to Mayor of Tower Hamlets (2015), paragraph