As we prepare for the European Parliamentary and English local government elections on 4 June, our aim of ensuring integrity and public confidence in the democratic process is crucial.
In an elections special, our new Chair, Jenny Watson, talks about our work towards this aim and the need to truly put voters’ interests at the heart of our activities, electoral policy and decision making.
Voters at the core of our work
The electoral cycle brings us closer to the 2009 local and European elections, a UK Parliamentary general election within the next 18 months and, potentially, a referendum on additional powers for the National Assembly for Wales. So that means that it is important for us to keep voters’ needs and perspectives at the heart of what we do in order to inspire participation, and to keep clear the messages of how to vote and the need to register to vote to make your voice heard.
The Government’s proposal to accelerate plans to replace household registration with individual registration in Great Britain will greatly support our objective of complete and accurate electoral registers, and our work in ensuring safer elections.
The right to register to vote is of fundamental importance to our democracy – so important that it is something for which individuals should take personal responsibility. If individual registration is to be implemented in a way that puts the interests of the voter first, it cannot be done overnight.
Comprehensive planning and support will be required for Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and local authorities, who do such important work to enable what is often the public’s only participation in democracy. We look forward to supporting its introduction.
Our public information campaigns for the June elections, which are underpinned by research into what the public think and know about registration and voting, launched in April.
The campaigns take a cross-media approach, with a focus on registration, in a bid to engage electors across the many information channels they now face. We need to build and inspire understanding amongst the electorate that politics is a public good, democracy is important and participation vital. I hope we can do more still to capture people’s imagination about the importance of voting – particularly younger people, where we need to break the cycle of non-participation.
We will also be monitoring the campaigns activities of parties, candidates and third parties during the regulated period to feed into our elections reporting.
In the coming months, we will begin our review of design standards for voting materials. We want to enhance the accessibility of ballot papers and other election materials so voters can ‘make their mark’ easily and confidently. The aim is to produce guidance later this year, alongside an online toolkit on our innovative new web resource, the Do Politics centre. Further information about the review and guidance will be available shortly.
Politics is a public good
At its most basic, we need politics because, as a society,we don’t agree. The institutionalisation of competing views through political parties, and the ability to choose between those views securely and in private through safe elections are the two pillars that underpin our democracy. So it is key for parties to be funded transparently, and for the public to have confidence that this is the case – not because politics is corrupt, but because our democracy is undermined if this confidence is lost.
We will continue to work hard to help people understand and follow the rules on party and election finance, remembering that many party finance workers are volunteers. The wider investigatory powers and more flexible range of sanctions offered by the Political Parties and Elections Bill, currently progressing through Parliament, will provide the Commission with a more appropriate range of regulatory powers for use when the rules on party and election finance are broken.
When launched, our online party finance and registration system will greatly enhance the process for political parties to make transparent their funding and elections spending, and our regulation of them.
Ensuring well-run elections
Voters have the right to expect a high quality of service in the elections process, wherever they are, so that results can be accepted. We have added to our performance standards framework and now have in place standards for Returning Officers (ROs).
Starting with the European Parliamentary elections this year, we will ask ROs to report on various aspects of their work. These standards, which supplement those we launched last year for EROs, and the additional support and guidance we are providing for polling staff and electoral administrators, will help build voters’ confidence that elections are being properly and securely run.
The role of the Commission and those who participate in the elections process – politicians at national and local level, electoral administrators, donors and voters – is critical in protecting and progressing the principle of free and fair elections that underpin our democracy. I look forward to working on this exciting agenda over the next few years.
Read more about our views on key issues and policies here.
Jenny Watson joined the Electoral Commission in January 2009 as Chair. She was the last Chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission, prior to the creation of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, and is a board member of the Audit Commission. She has worked in a number of human rights organisations, including Liberty and Charter88.
