What is Labour planning on electoral registration?

As Sunder Katwala pointed out on Twitter, Labour’s manifesto launch included a promise about electoral registration:

Labour will act ‘and legislate if necessary’ to end ‘unacceptable situation were 3m eligible voters cannot vote because not registered’

Anyone who qualifies to register is already legally obliged to, so what might this reference to possible legislation mean?

It could mean making the punishment for non-registration more stringent. It’s rare for someone to be prosecuted and it would be very much in line with the style of Labour’s approach to other issues to go for tougher punishments. However, whilst the reasons for non-registration have often been researched I’ve yet to see any evidence that suggests this approach would work.

It could mean toughening up the requirements on councils to run electoral registration effectively and intensively. Setting more Whitehall targets for how local government behaves however is something Labour has said it is moving away from – and without any suggestion of more funding it risks putting legal burdens on councils without providing resources to meet them. Again, not a good outcome.

Or it could mean changing the law to allow more data sharing between different parts of the government and public bodies. Potentially, this could be a sensible move – if done with proper safeguards and with control of personal data resting with the citizen.

For example, if I move and tell the TV licensing people that I am moving, I would be happy to tick a box saying, “This change of address can be shared with the council and taxman”.

Not everyone would, but such voluntary opt ins would provide either convenience or privacy as desired by the individual. Again though, Labour’s record suggests that this may well not be done sensibly; there have been far too many examples of people’s data and privacy not being respected.

Without more detail, Labour’s proposals can’t be properly judged but on past form there’s good reason to be wary of quite what they would entail.