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754205

registered interest
date	17/07/2017
answering body	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
answering dept id	36
answering dept short name	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
answering dept sort name	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
hansard heading	Elections: Fraud
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, what steps the Committee is taking to tackle voter fraud.
tabling member constituency	Wellingborough
tabling member printed	Mr Peter Bone
uin	900617
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 20/07/2017 answer text <p>The Commission has recommended since 2014 that an accessible proof of identity scheme should be developed and implemented for polling station voters in Great Britain. This would address the current absence of effective checks against personation and improve public confidence. The Commission notes that the Government has stated its intention to bring forward legislation during the current Parliament, to ensure that a form of identification must be presented before voting.</p><p>Prior to the general election on 8 June, the Commission produced detailed guidance to help (Acting) Returning Officers and police forces to put in place plans to prevent and detect electoral fraud. The Commission also continued its successful partnership with Crime Stoppers, the anonymous crime reporting charity, to make sure people could report concerns about electoral fraud.</p> answering member constituency Houghton and Sunderland South answering member printed Bridget Phillipson question first answered 20/07/2017 12:40:54 answering member 4046 label Biography information for Bridget Phillipson
tabling member	1581 label Biography information for Mr Peter Bone

731508

registered interest
date	21/06/2017
answering body	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
answering dept id	36
answering dept short name	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
answering dept sort name	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
hansard heading	Electoral Register
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, how many instances of voters being wrongly excluded from the electoral list were identified at the 2015 General Election; and in which constituencies such exclusions took place.
tabling member constituency	Bassetlaw
tabling member printed	John Mann
uin	302
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/07/2017 answer text <p>The Electoral Commission collected data from Returning Officers for all UK constituencies following the UK Parliamentary General Election on 7 May 2015. The data shows that an estimated 12,803 people tried to vote on polling day and were unregistered.</p><p>This number is based on data from 418 constituencies, as not all Returning Officers provided data and of those that did, some of the data provided was approximate. Figures for each constituency are available on the Electoral Commission’s website at <a href="http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/excel_doc/0011/191648/UKPGE-turnout-postal-rejected-admin-amended-WEB.xlsx" target="_blank">http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/excel_doc/0011/191648/UKPGE-turnout-postal-rejected-admin-amended-WEB.xlsx</a></p> answering member constituency Houghton and Sunderland South answering member printed Bridget Phillipson question first answered 17/07/2017 16:07:01 answering member 4046 label Biography information for Bridget Phillipson
tabling member	1387 label Biography information for Lord Mann

731524

registered interest
date	21/06/2017
answering body	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
answering dept id	36
answering dept short name	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
answering dept sort name	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
hansard heading	Absent Voting
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, how many postal votes were discounted because the signature or date of birth was not accepted by returning officers in each constituency in the (a) 2015 and (b) 2017 General Election.
tabling member constituency	Bassetlaw
tabling member printed	John Mann
uin	433
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/07/2017 answer text <p>The Electoral Commission collected data from Returning Officers for all UK constituencies following the UK Parliamentary general election on 7 May 2015. The numbers of postal vote statements rejected by Returning Officers due to mismatched signatures and mismatched dates of birth were as follows:</p><p>Postal Vote statements rejected due to mismatched signatures: 46,840</p><ul><li>Postal Vote statements rejected due to mismatched dates of birth: 38,148</li><li>Postal Vote statements rejected due to mismatched both dates of birth and signatures: 16,912</li></ul><p>Figures for each constituency are available on the Electoral Commission’s website at <a href="http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/excel_doc/0011/191648/UKPGE-turnout-postal-rejected-admin-amended-WEB.xlsx" target="_blank">http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/excel_doc/0011/191648/UKPGE-turnout-postal-rejected-admin-amended-WEB.xlsx</a></p><p>The Electoral Commission is currently collecting data from Returning Officers in relation to the 2017 general election, which will include the number of rejected postal votes. The Commission will publish this in the autumn.</p> answering member constituency Houghton and Sunderland South answering member printed Bridget Phillipson question first answered 17/07/2017 16:04:32 answering member 4046 label Biography information for Bridget Phillipson
tabling member	1387 label Biography information for Lord Mann

731600

registered interest
date	21/06/2017
answering body	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
answering dept id	36
answering dept short name	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
answering dept sort name	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
hansard heading	Voting Behaviour
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, if she will conduct a national audit to determine how many (a) students and (b) other registered voters voted in more than one parliamentary constituency in the General Election 2017.
tabling member constituency	Lichfield
tabling member printed	Michael Fabricant
uin	140
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/07/2017 answer text <p>The UK’s electoral registers are maintained by individual Electoral Registration Officers appointed by each local authority in Great Britain and by the Chief Electoral Officer in Northern Ireland. This means that it would not be feasible to identify duplicate entries between registers without considerable additional financial and operational resources. Providing a mechanism for EROs to compare information about electoral register entries more automatically across all 381 registers could help to further improve the accuracy and completeness of electoral registers and could also help to address the risk of voting more than once at a relevant election.</p><p>It is an offence under Section 61(2)(a) of the Representation of the People Act 1983, for an elector to cast more than one vote on their own behalf in a UK Parliamentary general election or at a referendum. This offence carries a fine which is unlimited in England and Wales, or a fine not exceeding £5,000 in Scotland.</p><p>Investigations into possible criminal offenses are a matter for the relevant police forces. The Electoral Commission has provided advice and guidance to UK police forces about how to investigate allegations that an individual may have voted twice, including obtaining from the relevant Returning Officers the marked copy of the register.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Houghton and Sunderland South answering member printed Bridget Phillipson question first answered 17/07/2017 16:01:57 answering member 4046 label Biography information for Bridget Phillipson
tabling member	280 label Biography information for Michael Fabricant

707323

registered interest
date	02/03/2017
answering body	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
answering dept id	36
answering dept short name	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
answering dept sort name	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
hansard heading	Voting Behaviour
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, with reference to the Electoral Commission's Electoral Administration Bulletin Issue 173, published in December 2016, what assessment the Commission has made of the potential merits of encouraging the voluntary adoption by (a) local electoral registration officers and (b) the Association of Electoral Administrators, of a standardised uniform format for the supply of information to make it easier for materials to be prepared and web services to be built by political parties and others to encourage electoral participation.
tabling member constituency	Lancaster and Fleetwood
tabling member printed	Cat Smith
uin	66391
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/03/2017 answer text <p>The Electoral Commission is working with Democracy Club and with local authorities to provide voters with easy access to polling station and candidate information in the lead up to elections, via a central online resource. To facilitate the easy collation of returns from local authorities, Democracy Club provides guidance on providing data in an open format. The Commission has encouraged the voluntary adoption of this preferred approach through its own communications with local authorities, including in its Electoral Administration bulletin, in its Roll Call newsletter and in meetings with local authorities. Recognising that local authorities currently hold this data in a variety of different formats, Democracy Club and the Commission currently prioritise the participation of the local authorities and Democracy Club manage any necessary reformatting of submitted data. The Commission has no current plans to make a recommendation to the Secretary of State in respect of the provision of this information.</p> answering member constituency Houghton and Sunderland South answering member printed Bridget Phillipson grouped question UIN 66389 66390 question first answered 08/03/2017 10:06:42 answering member 4046 label Biography information for Bridget Phillipson
tabling member	4436 label Biography information for Cat Smith

707324

registered interest
date	02/03/2017
answering body	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
answering dept id	36
answering dept short name	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
answering dept sort name	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
hansard heading	Voting Behaviour
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, with reference to the Electoral Commission's Electoral Administration Bulletin Issue 173, published in December 2016, whether the Commission plans to advise the Secretary of State to issue a direction under section 52 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 to require local electoral registration officers to make such information available in an easy-to-reuse format which includes as much geographic information as possible to make it easier for materials to be prepared and web services to be built to encourage electoral participation.
tabling member constituency	Lancaster and Fleetwood
tabling member printed	Cat Smith
uin	66390
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/03/2017 answer text <p>The Electoral Commission is working with Democracy Club and with local authorities to provide voters with easy access to polling station and candidate information in the lead up to elections, via a central online resource. To facilitate the easy collation of returns from local authorities, Democracy Club provides guidance on providing data in an open format. The Commission has encouraged the voluntary adoption of this preferred approach through its own communications with local authorities, including in its Electoral Administration bulletin, in its Roll Call newsletter and in meetings with local authorities. Recognising that local authorities currently hold this data in a variety of different formats, Democracy Club and the Commission currently prioritise the participation of the local authorities and Democracy Club manage any necessary reformatting of submitted data. The Commission has no current plans to make a recommendation to the Secretary of State in respect of the provision of this information.</p> answering member constituency Houghton and Sunderland South answering member printed Bridget Phillipson grouped question UIN 66389 66391 question first answered 08/03/2017 10:06:42 answering member 4046 label Biography information for Bridget Phillipson
tabling member	4436 label Biography information for Cat Smith

707325

registered interest
date	02/03/2017
answering body	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
answering dept id	36
answering dept short name	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
answering dept sort name	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
hansard heading	Voting Behaviour
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, with reference to the Electoral Commission's Electoral Administration Bulletin Issue 173, published in December 2016, what further steps the Commission has taken to encourage (a) local electoral registration officers and (b) the Association of Electoral Administrators, to make information available in a format which includes as much geographic information as possible, to make it easier for materials to be prepared and web services to be built to encourage electoral participation.
tabling member constituency	Lancaster and Fleetwood
tabling member printed	Cat Smith
uin	66389
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/03/2017 answer text <p>The Electoral Commission is working with Democracy Club and with local authorities to provide voters with easy access to polling station and candidate information in the lead up to elections, via a central online resource. To facilitate the easy collation of returns from local authorities, Democracy Club provides guidance on providing data in an open format. The Commission has encouraged the voluntary adoption of this preferred approach through its own communications with local authorities, including in its Electoral Administration bulletin, in its Roll Call newsletter and in meetings with local authorities. Recognising that local authorities currently hold this data in a variety of different formats, Democracy Club and the Commission currently prioritise the participation of the local authorities and Democracy Club manage any necessary reformatting of submitted data. The Commission has no current plans to make a recommendation to the Secretary of State in respect of the provision of this information.</p> answering member constituency Houghton and Sunderland South answering member printed Bridget Phillipson grouped question UIN 66390 66391 question first answered 08/03/2017 10:06:42 answering member 4046 label Biography information for Bridget Phillipson
tabling member	4436 label Biography information for Cat Smith

694271

registered interest
date	24/02/2017
answering body	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
answering dept id	36
answering dept short name	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
answering dept sort name	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
hansard heading	Electoral Commission: Advertising
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, what the Commission's policy is on online advertising; and how much was spent on online advertising with (a) Breitbart News and (b) each other outlet in each of the last three years.
tabling member constituency	Cardiff South and Penarth
tabling member printed	Stephen Doughty
uin	65501
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 01/03/2017 answer text <p>As part of its work to encourage people to register to vote, the Electoral Commission runs multi-media advertising campaigns before electoral events. Its most recent campaign led up to the voter registration deadline ahead of the Northern Ireland Assembly election scheduled for Thursday 2 March.</p><p>Online advertising is one of several channels used by the Commission and includes a number of elements, including ‘display’ advertising, whereby the Commission’s voter registration advertising appears on a wide range of websites, including various news media outlets, which voters are likely to visit for information on elections or about political interests. In order to achieve a breadth of coverage, the Commission often use the Google Display Network (GDN) which is a system run by Google that enables advertisers to place online banner ads across a wide range of news, blogs and other websites, and is a commonly used method for publicly-funded campaigns. They brief media buying agencies to purchase space on the GDN based on the audiences they want to reach. The algorithms that sit behind the GDN will automatically identify the most appropriate websites for ads to appear on, based on the audience visiting those sites. This is a cost-effective way to purchase advertising space and to ensure that a diversity of voters see messages multiple times – ads for the campaign in Northern Ireland appeared on more than 5,000 websites.</p><p>Historical data on individual website spending for all previous campaigns within the last three years is not held by the Commission. However, the Commission can confirm that as part of the recent campaign in Northern Ireland, the Commission’s spend relating to Breitbart News totals £19.51. This equates to 0.7% of the Commission’s overall advertising spend with the GDN in that campaign, and a total media budget for the campaign of £140,000 which included TV, press, billboard, radio and social media advertising.</p> answering member constituency Houghton and Sunderland South answering member printed Bridget Phillipson question first answered 01/03/2017 17:38:39 answering member 4046 label Biography information for Bridget Phillipson
tabling member	4264 label Biography information for Stephen Doughty

690458

registered interest
date	17/02/2017
answering body	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
answering dept id	36
answering dept short name	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
answering dept sort name	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
hansard heading	Polling Stations: Internet
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, with reference to the Electoral Commission's Electoral Administration Bulletin Issue 173, published in December 2016, for what reasons the Commission does not provide an online polling station finder service directly; and if the Commission will publish the minutes of meetings held which resulted in the decision not to collate that information internally.
tabling member constituency	Lancaster and Fleetwood
tabling member printed	Cat Smith
uin	64335
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 21/02/2017 answer text <p>The Electoral Commission continually monitors technological developments in order to provide the best possible service to voters. When the Commission started to explore the possibility of providing polling station locations on its website, Democracy Club had already done a lot of work in this area and had already amassed significant expertise on how best to collate and provide this data. The Commission took the view that it would represent better value for money for the taxpayer to work with and further support Democracy Club rather than restart the work they had already commenced.</p><p>Items that are discussed at the Commission Board are formally minuted and these are placed on the Commission’s website. The decision to work with Democracy Club was not made at Board level, but by a member of the Commission’s executive team as a matter of ongoing business. The decision was not minuted.</p><p>The Commission continues to work with Democracy Club ahead of the polls in May 2017. It is taking an active role in encouraging local authorities to provide their data to Democracy Club so that as many voters as possible can benefit from the service.</p> answering member constituency Houghton and Sunderland South answering member printed Bridget Phillipson question first answered 21/02/2017 17:55:35 answering member 4046 label Biography information for Bridget Phillipson
tabling member	4436 label Biography information for Cat Smith

690459

registered interest
date	17/02/2017
answering body	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
answering dept id	36
answering dept short name	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
answering dept sort name	Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
hansard heading	Polling Stations: Internet
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, with reference to the Electoral Commission's Electoral Administration Bulletin Issue 173, published in December 2016, what discussions the Commission has had with the Minister for the Cabinet Office on providing Democracy Club's online polling station information to political parties in a usable format.
tabling member constituency	Lancaster and Fleetwood
tabling member printed	Cat Smith
uin	64336
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 21/02/2017 answer text <p>The Electoral Commission has had no discussions with the Minister on the issue of providing online polling station information to political parties. The Commission has briefed the Minister for the Constitution about its partnership with Democracy Club; the Minister is supportive of the initiative, as noted in his recent speech to the conference of the Association of Electoral Administrators on 6 February 2017.</p> answering member constituency Houghton and Sunderland South answering member printed Bridget Phillipson question first answered 21/02/2017 17:56:15 answering member 4046 label Biography information for Bridget Phillipson
tabling member	4436 label Biography information for Cat Smith