To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what pilots have taken place in relation to the use of personal identifiers for absent voting. (176521)

Two pilots have taken place in relation to the use of personal identifiers for absent voting in respect of postal voting. These were in the London borough of Newham and Stevenage borough council at the May 2006 local elections.

Personal identifiers in the form of codes allocated to electors have been used in all electronic voting pilots since 2002.

In 2007, electronic voting pilots also required identifiers to be provided by electors to administrators to further enhance security.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what plans he has to consult on weekend voting in elections. (176666)

In July 2007 we published "The Governance of Britain'' Green Paper which sets out our commitment to consult on the merits of moving the voting day for general and/or local elections from Thursday to the weekend.

Work is currently being undertaken to finalise the consultation process for weekend voting.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what plans he has to extend the use of (a) e-counting and (b) remote electronic voting to future (i) local, (ii) European Parliament and (iii) general elections. (176667)

In the Governance of Britain Green Paper the Government sets out a long-term aim to investigate the potential benefits of remote electronic voting and to take advantage of emerging communication technologies to provide increased flexibility and choice in the way people vote.

In the immediate term we are reviewing the lessons learnt from previous e-voting and e-counting pilots. This will help to advise our future programme of work for electoral modernisation.

There are no plans in the short term to extend the use of e-voting and e-counting to (i) local, (ii) European Parliament and (iii) general elections.