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<p>The Electoral Commission does not maintain the electoral registers, which is the
statutory duty of Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and their teams. The Electoral
Commission issues guidance to EROs about how to deliver both well run elections and
public awareness campaigns to make sure voters are aware of when and how to register
to vote. The Commission also runs its own public awareness campaigns to remind people
to register to vote and to support the activity of EROs. During its campaign before
the 2015 General Election there were 1,561,093 additions to the electoral registers,
as detailed in its <a href="http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/190941/May-2015-polls-public-awareness-activity-report.pdf"
target="_blank">campaign evaluation report</a>.</p><p>In June 2015 the Electoral Commission
published its assessment of the progress with transition to Individual Electoral Registration
(IER). An updated version of this assessment was recently laid in the House Library
amending a small number of typographical errors found in background figures, none
of which affected the findings of the assessment or the Commission’s advice.</p><p>The
Commission’s June IER assessment did not include an estimate of levels of accuracy
and completeness of the registers. The Commission’s last report on this was published
in 2014. The June report did note, however, that activities such as the introduction
of IER and the introduction of online registration are likely to have had a positive
impact on accuracy and completeness. However, it was also clear that others will have
had a negative effect, such as the lack of comprehensive household canvassing activity
in 2014.</p><p>The Electoral Commission has made clear that it does not support the
Government’s decision to bring forward the end of the transition to IER to 1 December
2015 and has noted instead that this should remain as 1 December 2016, as Parliament
originally decided. However, should Parliament approve the Government’s order to bring
forward the end of the transition, the Commission will continue to monitor the state
of the registers and will collect further data from EROs focusing on the 2015 canvass
and the December 2015 register.</p>
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