WE have been using an out-dated system to register to vote. The UK was the only Western democracy to still use the "head of household" system which required one person in each household to take responsibility for registering all of the members of that household to vote.
If you failed to complete the household registration form, you could be fined up to £1,000.
To add your name to the register you had to either complete the annual form that was sent to your house, request a form from your local registration office, or print off a form from the internet so you could sign it and send it in.
There were very few means to address fraud.
And moving to an online system of registration was nigh-on impossible, which also meant any future online voting or even voting somewhere other than the one polling station that held your paper data was also difficult.
Therefore, the introduction last year of Individual Voter Registration was a welcome move.
Obviously, as with any transition from a paper to an online system there are a few potential areas of confusion.
So, to avoid any immediate problems with the May 2015 General Election, the UK is running two electoral registers at the same time.
One is the original head of household register – the register you will be on if you registered to vote for the referendum (and haven’t moved since then).
The second is the new individual register.
You will be on this register if you have either been data-matched by your local registration office (that is to say, they have been able to prove you are who you say you are and live where you live – to quite high standards) or if you have registered using the new online system.
Everyone who has been data matched will have been sent a letter telling them they have been transferred to the new individual register.
But people who couldn’t be matched – for whatever reason – were sent a letter asking them to re-register and in some cases prove their identity.
This is a welcome prompt to remind people to register. However, some people have reported that this request has felt like more of a threat.
There is a fine attached to not registering to vote, as there was in the previous system. Its £80, compared to the old fine of £1,000. The UK Government wanted it to be a criminal offence. The Electoral Reform Society fought against that.
As far as records can tell, no-one has ever been fined for not registering to vote. It’s a last gasp tool to try and get the electoral register as complete as possible. That it is being used at this early stage in transferring to the new system is arguably an error of judgement.
The confusion around the transition to this new system is regrettable.
But because the two registers are running at the same time, no-one who would ordinarily have been able to vote in the 2015 General Election will be unable to do so.
Of course, we could make registration and voting even easier – by allowing registration on polling day for instance. And the new system will make this much more likely to happen.
If in doubt, phone your local registration office (your local council can give you the number). And if they can’t confirm your registration – register online. It’s a lot easier than it used to be.
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