Havering Council changes its rolling electoral registration policy, again

In the run-up to the general election, I wrote about Havering Council’s stated public policy of rejecting applications to join the electoral register from people if they were made on forms downloaded from the Electoral Commission’s own dedicated website. It was a policy that caused complaints from residents as well as raising questions about why a council would blanket reject applications from people using the Electoral Commission’s own nationally advertised website.

This policy arose from Havering Council’s reaction to a previous set of attempts to make false electoral register entries, which led it to decide that it would not accept forms downloaded from the internet, even from the Electoral Commission’s site and even though the law does not allow a council to specify the form someone must use. Instead, the council would post out a second form back to people and only register them if they also filled out that second form. A member of council staff even called members of the public who registered shortly before an election “ridiculous” for leaving it so late (even if the reason might have been that they had just moved).

However, as I wrote, “when pressed as to whether or not the council would reject any recent applications which were made in line with the law but where the person did not return a second form, the council said it would make a judgement during the 5 day period it has to consider registration requests”.

Following me contacting both Havering Council and the Electoral Commission, the council’s stated policy on its website was changed to include the proviso that, “In the run up to the election period, we will accept downloaded forms subject to further integrity checks”.

That left open the question of what Havering Council would do outside of election time or, as is now the case, as we get closer to a referendum. So again I’ve contacted both Havering Council and the Electoral Commission.

The net result is that Havering Council has made a further welcome change in their stated public policy, with their website being altered once again and now says, “Please note that Havering Council does not accept registration forms downloaded from the internet at face value and will make further integrity checks to prevent electoral fraud”.

In other words, Havering Council is now no longer telling people that it is blanket rejecting Electoral Commission forms, either in the run up to elections or at other times. Score one small victory for common sense and one small victory for the public’s convenience.