Archive for electoral commission
Jenny Watson responds to criticism of her speech
On Tuesday evening I blogged about the speech given by Jenny Watson, Chair of the Electoral Commission, criticising her comments about turnout in British elections:
I was rather surprised at the introduction to your speech earlier today to the UCL Constitution Unit where you painted what seems to me a very misleading picture of what is [...]
The Electoral Commission gets it wrong on turnout
Here’s the email I’ve sent to Jenny Watson, Chair of the Electoral Commission:
Dear Jenny Watson,
I was rather surprised at the introduction to your speech earlier today to the UCL Constitution Unit where you painted what seems to me a very misleading picture of what is happening to turnout in British elections.
I appreciate that is a [...]
The mess enveloping the law over local election candidates
Cross-posted from The Wardman Wire:
The question of who can stand for election to a local council should be clearly defined and easy to understand – so that those new to politics can be candidates, so that voters don’t end up with a false choice where not all the candidates are actually allowed to be candidates [...]
My secret Government interview: will it now be published?
A little while back I was interviewed as part of a Gateway review into one of the Government’s IT projects. It was for the CORE electoral register project, the successor to LASER, which was originally due to be delivered in the Autumn of 2001. Nearly a decade, and an awful lot of money, on the [...]
Ending as I begun: unusual legal advice
I started working for the Liberal Democrats in 2000, just as the Electoral Commission was being created. Through the years a regular part of my job has been dealing with telegrams, phone calls or emails from people along the lines of “The Council says the Electoral Commission has told them that no-one with vowels in [...]
The loans that aren’t loans are no more
It had become a quarterly habit of mine, pointing out how the Electoral Commission’s quarterly reports mixed up actual loans taken out by political parties with unused credit facilities, providing an inaccurate impression of parties being much more in debt than they really are.
Last quarter I noted that the reporting was clearer, and it’s good [...]
New figures show over a third of councils are failing in the fight against electoral fraud
New figures published today by the Electoral Commission show that over a third of local councils are failing to meet the standards laid down to ensure the integrity of the electoral register and postal voting process.
Today’s figures are the first time the Electoral Commission has published detailed records of how Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) across [...]
Conservative Party faces investigation over controversial donations from Said family
The Electoral Commission is investigating tens of thousands of pounds the Conservative Party has received from the Said family, according to the Daily Telegraph.
Wafic Said was a key figure in the highly controversial Al-Yamamah arms deal between Saudi Arabia and the UK. Allegations of corruption surrounding the deal were being investigated by staff at Britain’s [...]
Performance standards introduced for Returning Officers in Britain
Cross-posted from The Wardman Wire:
The varying quality of electoral administration
The quality of Returning Officers and their staff has always been very variable. Ask anyone who has been involved in elections across different areas, and the chances are they have a store of horror stories about just how bad things get in some areas at times.
My [...]
Lord Ashcroft and the Conservative Party: the financial controversies
With Michael Ashcroft back in the news over his financial support for the Conservative Party, this post provides a quick recap of the past controversies over Michael Ashcroft, the Conservative Party and political funding.
Ashcroft’s sequence of senior Conservative posts
Under William Hague, Ashcroft was Treasurer of the Conservative Party (1998-2001), becoming a peer and member of [...]
