Annual canvass reform proposals: consultation paper

Section 10. Other proposed reforms

10.1 Gathering HEF and ITR information as one

Whilst the planned reforms to the annual canvass focus on streamlining the process, they will not really address the confusion over the ‘two stage’ process. The two stage process risks confusing someone who is completing a HEF and registering to vote at the same time. We are looking at the two following options to address this issue:

● Incorporating a question in the individual registration application (online and on paper) asking the applicant to list anyone else who lives at the property and who is eligible to register to vote. This means that the ERO should be able to identify citizens who need to be sent an ITR throughout the year, rather than just at the canvass. The fewer people who need to register to vote off the back of completing a HEF, the fewer people risk being confused by the process.

● Streamlining the online HEF process to allow a new elector to add all the required information for their registration as part of their online HEF journey. This would be for the person who was completing the online HEF only. Any other new electors identified would need to make separate individual applications. This would mean that each citizen would have only one interaction, the citizen completing the HEF, would have one interaction with the HEF but include their own personal individual application information; and for the other citizens in the property, they will be directed to the individual registration process. (This will be for the online journeys only.)

10.2 Better Metrics

Alongside and to support canvass reform, we are looking to improve the data available to EROs. EROs currently have access to a select range of management information ( MI) in their Electoral Management Software ( EMS) systems. The Better Metrics project represents an opportunity to explore the benefit to EROs of developing, enhancing and focussing MI reporting functionality so that it is easy to access, clear and reliable. This, in turn, will assist EROs to assess the outcomes they are achieving for their electoral registers and their targeting of resources to maximise their use.

Additionally, the Electoral Commission has an ongoing need for high quality data from EROs to underpin their work in supporting and challenging the work of EROs against the performance standards framework.

This project represents an opportunity to reach a solution that delivers key metrics that:

• produce a set of agreed core electoral data, which could easily be run from any EMS system, in a repeatable way, at various points of the year.
• is responsive to an anticipated environment where EROs have greater discretion over how they conduct the annual canvass and maintain their registers.

Question 18

Is there any further feedback you would like to provide in relation to the proposed new model for the annual canvass, that has not already been covered in another question?