Interviewed by Sky News last Thursday during the annual Labour party conference, the Labour Deputy Leader, Harriet Harman, claimed that the Conservatives were trying to push up to 10 million voters off the electoral register to make it easier for themselves to win the election!
Coalition government plans for Electoral Roll reform would require each individual to sign up, ending the system where one person can register their household and research by the Independent Electoral Commission has found most of those who will become ineligible to vote are likely to have been Labour voters.
She asserted that the people who, as a result of these rule changes, are most likely to be pushed off the register, are young people, people living in rented accommodation, rather than people who own their own home, and people who live in cities rather than rural areas. Describing the right to vote as absolutely fundamental in a democracy, Ms Harman was going to use her closing speech at the Labour conference in Liverpool to criticise the policy and say that the Electoral Commission expects the number of eligible voters who are registered to drop from 90% to as low as 60%. She added that the people bumped off the list were likely to be predominantly poor, young or black, and more liable to vote Labour.
Now it was not explained why such people would be pushed off the Electoral Roll as a result of these proposed changes and, therefore, it can only be assumed that this proposed government policy is aimed at reducing the number of fraudulent or invalid electoral registrations. It is ironic that, as one of many British expatriates who have lost their democratic right to vote only as a result of being a non-UK resident for more than 15 years, we still have British passports supplied and validated by HMG which, in the absence of ID cards, could easily be used to identify us as valid voters on the Electoral Roll!
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