Electoral Fraud

Sir Nicholas Winterton
19. To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what steps the Government are taking to reduce levels of electoral fraud.

Mr. Wills
The Government have taken significant steps to enhance the security of the electoral process including the measures introduced in the Electoral Administration Act 2006.

Recent information published by the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Electoral Commission on 1 May allows us, for the first time, to examine the extent and nature of allegations of electoral malpractice. It is consistent with earlier findings that the scale and volume of allegations of fraud have been decreasing. Of the 60 voting and registration alleged offences recorded at the 2008 elections, no further action was taken in the significant majority of these cases. This must be seen in the context of the 16 million votes which were cast at the May 2008 elections—but fraud is still unacceptable.

We cannot be complacent about electoral fraud but these figures demonstrate that the measures which we and others, including the police, the Electoral Commission and electoral administrators, have already taken have been successful.

We are now legislating for the introduction of individual registration in a way that will help to further curb the risk of fraud, while ensuring that changes also support improvements to the comprehensiveness and accuracy of electoral registers.