Archive:
(This document is for archive/historical
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9.1 As at previous European Parliamentary elections, verification of the votes (that is reconciling the number of ballot papers in the ballot boxes with the number of ballot papers that have been issued) was separated by several days from the actual counting of the votes, unlike at Parliamentary and local elections where the two processes take place consecutively.
The Verification
9.2 The 1999 regulations required verification of the votes to take place "as soon as practicable after the close of poll". [1] This replicated the position under the previous system. The rationale for requiring early verification even though the count could not take place for three days was that it was important to identify and, if possible, rectify any discrepancies as soon as possible while the events of the day were still fresh in the minds of the polling station staff. It was also much easier to store the ballot papers in the period until the count itself if the ballot boxes had been opened and the papers unfolded and sorted.
9.3 There do not appear to have been any particular problems with the verification. Neither the political parties nor the electoral administrators reported any significant difficulties with the conduct of the verification though one political party did report that within one particular region there was considerable inconsistency between local returning officers as to who was allowed to attend verifications (and counts).
9.4 The transmission of the verification figure (that is the number of valid votes to be counted) in each constituency to the regional returning officer appears to have gone smoothly and in most regions was used as a trial run for the transmission of the result which was to follow three days later.
Timing of the Verification
9.5 Prior to the election there was some debate as to whether the verification should take place on the evening of the poll as soon as the polls had closed or whether it could be delayed till the following morning.
9.6 In the event the verification took place on the Thursday night in almost every constituency in England and Wales. This was largely because nowadays virtually every constituency counts its Parliamentary votes on the evening of polling day so it would be hard to argue that it would not be "practicable" to conduct a verification on the evening of the poll.
9.7 Another factor was that a number of regional returning officers sought to require all their local returning officers to verify their votes on the Thursday night. In Wales where there were combined polls and the community council votes were being counted on the Thursday night, the European verification had to take place at the same time since the ballot boxes had been opened.
9.8 A number of those to whom we have spoken have questioned whether it is necessary to conduct the verification on Thursday night. Given that the votes are not counted for several days an early verification does not assist in producing quick results and the media (unfortunately) show little interest in knowing the turnout figure. Electoral staff are tired at the end of polling day and it is sometimes hard to recruit staff for a verification which begins at 10pm.
9.9 We are quite clear that, for the reasons set out in paragraph 9.2 above, the verification must take place reasonably quickly after the polls close and certainly can not be left till just before the count begins. However, we see the force of the arguments that the verification need not be held on the Thursday night. We believe that there is a case for giving local returning officers greater discretion as to the timing of the verification. We think it should be possible to move away from the "as soon as practicable" formulation. Instead we think local returning officers could be required to provide the regional returning officer with their verification figure by, say 2pm on the day following the poll.
9.10 Clearly, there would need to be liaison between local returning officers and regional returning officers so the regional returning officer would know when he or she could expect to receive the verification figures (it might be sensible for the regional returning officer to specify a time when he or she wanted to receive the figures so that they did not arrive in dribs and drabs depending on the decisions taken by local returning officers).
9.11 In Scotland, with a couple of exceptions, verification did not take place in most constituencies until the early evening of Sunday 13 June, shortly before the actual count. This was apparently in line with the practice adopted at previous European Parliamentary elections. However, it is hard to see how it could be argued that the "as soon as practicable" test had been met. We do not know why the Scottish returning officers adopted this practice.[2] Whatever the justification may have been, we believe that for future verifications Scotland should come into line with the rest of Britain.
Timing of the Count
9.12 The actual counting of the votes could begin at 9pm on Sunday 13 June, which was the time that the polls closed in the last of the other EU member states.
9.13 The information about when the count could begin was only formally communicated to returning officers in a Home Office circular issued on 25 May.[3] This late notification does not appear to have caused any great problems, not least because a 9pm start time was widely anticipated.
9.14 The reason why it was not possible to give earlier information was that, despite prodding by the UK Permanent Representation to the European Community, this information was not made available by the EU until very late in the day. That, unfortunately, is unlikely to change at future elections.[4]
9.15 Overall the process of counting the votes appears to have gone very smoothly and none of the political parties or electoral administrators that we spoke to reported any major difficulties. The low turnout meant that there were fewer votes to count than had been anticipated and the first counts were completed within an hour of the count beginning.
9.16 Regional and local returning officers had agreed systems in advance for transmitting the results from the local count centre to the regional count centre and, again, this all appears to have worked smoothly. Certainly we were not made aware of any difficulties.
Clearance by the Regional Returning Officer
9.17 The regulations provided that once a local result had been transmitted to the regional returning officer he or she was required to give his or her clearance before the result could be declared locally. Some people queried whether there was any point in this since a regional returning officer would have no grounds for questioning a local result.
9.18 While we understand that argument, we believe that the requirement for clearance from the regional returning officer should be retained. In a number of cases the regional returning officer or his or her staff noticed that the number of votes for each party and candidate did not add up to the total figure or that the total was markedly different from the verification figure. Though in each of these cases the number of votes involved was trivial when set against the total number of votes in the region, these were important corrections.
9.19 More importantly, if the result had been declared locally before being transmitted to the regional returning officer, there would have been no redress if the regional returning officer had noticed a major error (not least because the staff at the local count would presumably have left).
9.20 In the event, in almost every case, local returning officers received clearance to declare their results locally within a few minutes of transmitting the figures to the regional returning officer, so staff at local counts were not kept back unnecessarily.
9.21 One particular problem arose in the London region where the votes for two parties were transposed in the result from one constituency. Fortunately the error was spotted just before the result was declared locally and could be remedied. It has been suggested to us that in cases such as this, where an error comes to light after the local declaration but before the final regional seat allocation calculation is made, the regional returning officer should be able to carry out the calculation on the basis of the correct figure rather than the one which has been declared.
9.22 We have sought legal advice on this point. The position is not clear but it is at least arguable that the declaration that matters for legal purposes is the regional one since that is the one that gives notice as to who is elected. Therefore it would be permissible for the regional returning officer to use the correct figure rather than the one which had been declared locally. That would, in any event, seem to be the commonsense solution. It seems most unlikely that anyone would bring a legal challenge, or that any such challenge would be successful, against a regional returning officer who acted in such a way as to ensure that the result in his or her region was as accurate as possible.
The Regional Count Centre
9.23 Regional returning officers entered the local results onto computers which were programmed with specially commissioned software capable of using the d'Hondt divisor to carry out the seat allocation calculation. Once more we can report that the whole process appeared to work very smoothly and it is much to the regional returning officers' credit that in most cases the final regional result was declared very shortly after the final local result was received at the regional centre.
9.24 Most regional returning officers provided screens on which those present at the regional centre could see the results from constituencies in the region at the same time as they were declared locally and also see the emerging picture from across the region.
9.25 Though there was no necessity to provide such facilities, they were generally welcomed by all of those who were present at regional count centres and we would hope that they will also be available at future European Parliamentary elections. Accordingly we recommend that, should funds permit it, the provision of screens or similar facilities at regional count centres should be considered to be an allowable expense.
9.26 There were complaints in a couple of regions about delays between results being received by the regional returning officer and appearing on the results screen. We do not know what may have been behind any such delays but clearly it is desirable that results would be made public at the regional centre at the earliest possible moment and that, wherever possible, such delays should be avoided.
Recounts
9.27 The regulations provided that candidates' and parties' representatives at local counts could ask for those votes to be recounted before the local result was transmitted to the regional centre and that those present at the seat allocation could ask for the seat allocation calculation to be repeated. What was not possible was a full regional recount.
9.28 The reasons for this were those of practicality and expense. If full regional recounts had been possible it would have been necessary to do one of two things. Either counting staff at every local count would have had to be kept back until the last local count in the region had been completed just in case a recount was called for (in London about three hours elapsed between the completion of the first and last local counts. Keeping staff waiting doing nothing for that length of time during the small hours of a Monday morning would not have been popular and, perhaps, not possible).
9.29 The alternative would have been to have had contingency arrangements to reassemble the counting staff on Monday and for the votes in each constituency to be recounted then. This would have meant booking sports halls etc for an extra day with both the cost and inconvenience that would have been involved. It would also have been difficult to recruit staff who were prepared, if necessary, to give up a working day.
9.30 A number of concerns were expressed about the provisions relating to recounts. The Conservative party were concerned about the inability to call for a full regional recount and foresaw difficulties if the final result in any region turned out to be close. Some electoral administrators feared that political parties would call for recounts in almost every constituency as the particular result in a constituency no longer offered a benchmark for whether or not a recount was appropriate.
9.31 In the event, there do not appear to have been any particular problems relating to recounts. The number of constituencies where there were recounts turned out to be very small and mostly seemed to revolve around the question of which party had "won" the constituency in question rather than its relevance to the regional vote.
9.32 The parties have confirmed that they did not issue any central instructions to local agents as to the circumstances in which they should seek a constituency recount. Nor, as some had feared might be the case, were instructions hurriedly telephoned to local agents as the regional picture began to emerge.
9.33 The regional returning officer was asked to repeat the seat allocation calculation in only one region.
9.34 The final result was reasonably close in several regions (in that a small number of votes difference determined the allocation of the final seat) but not so close as to call into question the whole regional result.[5] In the South East region the Greens won the final seat ahead of the Conservatives by 249 votes. However, it is important to realise that at the point the Conservative total was being divided by six, that party having already been allocated five seats in the South East region.
9.35 In the event, therefore, the issue of full regional recounts was not brought into focus by the 1999 European Parliamentary election results but the question remains.
9.36 The Liberal Democrats have repeated their belief that there should be provision for full regional recounts but, in recognition of the cost and difficulty involved suggested that it should only be possible to ask for a full recount if the margin of difference between the parties or candidates concerned was less than a fixed percentage of the votes, say 0.1%.
9.37 Other parties too have expressed the view that there should be some provision for a full regional recount. However they have all also recognised the practical difficulties that are attached to this and none was able to offer any solution to them, apart from the introduction of electronic counting.
9.38 We too are unable to offer any solution as to how full regional recounts could be accommodated and, in the light of that and the lack of problems that were experienced at these elections, we do not recommend any change to the rules governing recounts.
Division of Responsibilities
9.39 More than any other area the verification and the count led to such tensions as there were between local and regional returning officers (see chapter 2 above). Given that local counts (for which local returning officers were responsible) were an integral ingredient for producing the regional result (for which the regional returning officer was responsible) this was perhaps inevitable.
9.40 Some regional returning officers clearly wanted greater powers of direction over the activities of local returning officers while some local returning officer resented what they saw as interference in matters that were their prerogative.
9.41 It is interesting to report something of a difference of opinion among regional returning officers in this respect. While, as noted above, some felt that they should have greater powers, others considered that had they been given additional powers every single problem would have been referred up the line to them.[6]
9.42 In the light of this we again believe that this is a matter best left to experience and commonsense. Accordingly, we recommend that no amendments are made to the regulations to reapportion responsibilities for the counting process.
Introduction
10.1 This review is concerned primarily with the administrative aspects of the election and as such has concentrated concentrated on how political parties and electoral administrators coped with the demands of the new electoral system. However, the most important "customer" in any election is the elector and this chapter is concerned with the impact of the electoral system on the public.
10.2 Of course many of the changes brought about by the electoral system were of no consequence to electors - the average voter had no interest in the details of the nomination process or the relationship between regional and local returning officers. Voters' engagement with the process came in their decision whether or not to vote and, if they did decide to vote, how they found the experience.
Turnout [7]
10.3 The turnout at the 1999 European Parliamentary elections in Britain was 23.1% [8], a record low for any national election. It also meant that the United Kingdom, unfortunately, claimed back the EU turnout wooden spoon which it had managed to lose in 1994 [9].
10.4 The reasons for the low turnout are many and varied and it is clear that no one single cause can be attributed.
10.5 The United Kingdom was not alone in experiencing a sharp decline in turnout. Of the fifteen EU Member states which went to the polls in 1999, all but three experienced a drop in the level of turnout compared with the previous election. The UK did not experience the largest drop. In Germany, where no change was made to the electoral process, turnout fell from 60% in 1994 to 45% in 1999. In both Austria and Finland turnout levels in 1999 were significantly lower than in 1996, when both countries elected their first MEPs. Austria dropped from 68% to 49% and Finland from 60% to 30%. Average EU turnout fell from 57% in 1994 to 49% in 1999, when eleven of the fifteen Member States experienced their lowest ever turnout in European elections.
10.6 It is also significant that the turnout in the Leeds Central Parliamentary by-election, which was held on the same day as the European Parliamentary elections and using the traditional first-past-the-post system, was 19.6%, the lowest ever in a peacetime by-election since the introduction of universal suffrage.
10.7 There was a noticeable lack of campaign activity on the part of political parties and candidates at both national and local level [10]. This may have been because of fatigue caused by the local and Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly elections taking place little more than a month before. It may have been that party activists shared the public's lack of enthusiasm for, or interest in, the European parliament. It may, as the Conservative Party suggested to us, be that the lack of a single candidate in each area meant that there was no standard bearer who rallied the troops. Nevertheless, whatever the cause, very little effort by normal standards was made to contact and enthuse the voters. Much of the effort that there was, was targeted at known supporters even though the electoral system meant that targetting in this way was a less profitable strategy than in other elections.
10.8 Each of the three major political parties spent a little more than £1 million on the campaign, around a third of the total that they were allowed, and vastly less than the £20 million that it is estimated that the two largest parties spent at the 1997 general election [11].
10.9 It is also the case that the media gave the European Parliamentary elections far less coverage than would be the case for a normal election, not least because the bombing of Kosovo provided a much more compelling item to cover.[12]
10.10 Finally, it is a fact that turnout has been falling at every type of election. Turnout at the 1997 general election was lower than at any post-war general election. Turnout has also been falling at local elections for several years with only just over 30% of the electorate voting at the English local elections in May 1999. Turnout levels in European Parliamentary elections have always been several percentage points lower than in the local elections which have preceded them so the turnout in the European Parliamentary elections in 1999 fitted a consistent pattern.
Was the Voting System to Blame?
10.11 The introduction of the new voting system has been an obvious target for those seeking a cause for the low turnout and so it was important to discover, as far as possible, whether the new electoral system played a part in influencing people in deciding whether or not to vote.
10.12 The Home Office commissioned two pieces of research - one quantitative [14] and one qualitative [15] - to ascertain the attitude of the electorate towards the European elections and the new voting system. A summary of the findings of each is attached at annex B.
10.13 From the research carried out it would appear that the majority of those who voted in the European elections in 1999 were habitual voters who did so out of a sense of civic duty. This was particularly true of older people who, according to the findings, were far more likely to vote than younger people.
10.14 Both the qualitative and quantitative research showed that the reasons why people did not vote in 1999 were various and included a lack of knowledge and/or scepticism about the European Parliament and European issues generally; a lack of information prior to the election (compared with the media frenzy which usually precedes a UK general election); a feeling of remoteness from the democratic process; and general apathy (the latter being especially marked amongst younger people). It is significant that none of the research findings suggested that the new voting system was a factor.
10.15 The quantitative research carried out by the Office for National Statistics shows that although more than half (57%) of those surveyed were aware that a new voting system was being used, 95% said that it had no bearing on their decision to vote. However, the qualitative research carried out by NOP suggests that, when fully aware of the mechanics of the new system, some voters are doubtful about the loyalty of an MEP to his or her electors as opposed to his or her party. The ability to vote for an individual candidate (as in the Belgian system) was seen by some focus group attendees as a way to reduce party influence and ensure that an elected MEP was more accountable to his or her electors. Nevertheless, as the findings make clear, it was not these feelings about the new voting system which kept people away from the polls in 1999.
10.16 The conclusion that this research points to is that the electoral system had a neutral effect on the turnout level. This view is endorsed by the principal academic commentary on these elections:
"The new system is now indelibly associated with the record low turnout. While it is not clear (as some reformers would like to believe) that it was the particular type of system used that was responsible for the dull campaign or the low turnout, the introduction of proportional representation clearly failed to encourage more people to vote" [16].
10.17 It would thus appear that the introduction of the new voting system in 1999 merely coincided with the drop in turnout; it did not cause it. As noted above, the research showed that the most important factor affecting turnout was lack of engagement with the institutions of the European Parliament. Indeed, the quantitative research produced one particularly interesting finding. For most elections, most people feel under a certain obligation to vote and if they have failed to do so will normally seek to justify that when questioned about it (for example: "I was held up at work", "my mother was taken ill on polling day"). They seemed to feel no such guilt about not voting in European Parliamentary elections and explained their failure to vote simply by reference to not having any desire to do so or not being bothered.
Open v Closed Lists
10.18 During the passage of the European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999, there was considerable discussion as to whether the voting system to be introduced should be a "closed" system (in which electors can only vote for a party's list of candidates) or an "open" system (in which votes can be given to individuals on a party list) or the compromise Belgian system.
10.19 The Liberal Democrats and the Green Party emphasised to us that they believed that the system should be one in which it was possible to cast a vote for a particular candidate on a party's list. The Conservatives too said that if there was to be a proportional voting system - and their strong preference would be the re-introduction of first-past-the-post for European Parliamentary elections - it should be a system which allowed for this.
10.20 The question of the precise type of voting system is obviously a political one which it would be appropriate for us to try to answer. However, we can emphasise that, as noted above, there is no evidence to indicate that people's decision as to whether or not to vote was influenced by the voting system being used. It therefore seems most unlikely that the adoption of a fully open or Belgian type system would have made any appreciable difference to the level of turnout.
10.21 Another argument that has been put is that an open or Belgian type system would have encouraged candidates on party lists to take a more active role in campaigning which would have contributed to an increase in turnout. This can only be speculation. It is perhaps worth noting though that under first-past-the-post there are large number of candidates who can be virtually certain of victory or who know that they have no realistic prospect of victory. Nevertheless, in Parliamentary elections candidates of both of these categories campaign assiduously so the mere fact that in a closed list only the candidates in the "hinge" positions have a direct vested interest in campaigning should not be sufficient to explain the lack of campaign activity [17].
10.22 On the continent where closed lists are used, political parties tend to "sell" the list to the electorate on the basis of the candidate who heads the list. There is some evidence [18] that parties did particularly well in constituencies with which the candidate at the head of their list had some connection, suggesting that a certain amount of personal voting did take place.
Using the System
10.23 For the 23% of the electorate in Britain who chose to vote in 1999, the most obvious manifestation of the new electoral system was the look of the ballot paper which had changed since the 1994 election. Chapter 8 has already explained the reasons for the design of the ballot paper but the only way to find out whether or not the design was successful was to find out the views of those who had to use it and the picture is encouraging.
10.24 Electoral administrators have provided anecdotal evidence that their polling station staff reported that voters neither appeared to have difficulty with the ballot paper nor had questions about it.
10.25 The quantitative research carried out as part of the evaluation of the training project showed that 89% of those who voted found the ballot paper easy to use. The focus group research carried out for the same purpose indicated that the electorate had no difficulty in understanding the ballot paper.
10.26 A similar picture emerges from an opinion poll carried out immediately following the election by ICM on behalf of the BBC. 84% of those questioned said that they thought that the layout of the ballot paper was clear.
10.27 The most important test is the number of spoilt ballot papers. In total there were 25,812 spoilt ballot papers in Britain, representing 0.26% of all votes cast. This compares with 32,316 spoilt ballot papers (0.21% of the votes cast) at the 1994 European Parliamentary elections and 90,288 spoilt ballot papers (0.3% of the votes cast) at the 1997 general election. This does not suggest that the electorate encountered any great difficulties in casting a vote using the new ballot paper.
10.28 The broader question is how those who did decide to vote reacted to the new electoral system, as opposed to just the ballot paper. Here again the ICM survey carried out for the BBC is helpful. Of those questioned 57.6% said that they preferred voting for a party list as opposed to 34.3% who said that they preferred voting for an individual candidate. Older voters were keener to vote for individual candidates while the young were most in favour of voting for a list. Interestingly, there was no great variation in the responses given by supporters of the three main parties.
Introduction
11.1 On 15 March 1999 the Home Secretary announced in the House of Commons [19] that the Government would spend £3.5 million on a publicity campaign to remind voters that the European Parliamentary elections were imminent, to inform them of the new voting system and to encourage participation.
11.2 The campaign consisted of three major elements - two newspaper advertisements, a television advertising campaign to warn people to look out for an information leaflet and the leaflet itself which was delivered by the Post Office to every household in Britain. The text of the press advertisements and the leaflet were cleared with the principal Opposition parties.
11.3 A campaign of this sort was unprecedented in national elections. Though it has become practice for the Home Office to undertake a limited amount of advertising to inform people how to obtain an absent vote, there has never previously been a national campaign [20] aimed at educating people about the electoral system or the functions of the body to be elected. As such the campaign attracted a considerable degree of attention.[21]
Press Advertisements
11.4 The press advertisements appeared on 23 and 24 May and 9 June. The first round of advertising told people of the date of the elections and advised them to look out for the leaflet which was about to be delivered.
11.5 The second round of advertising contained brief instructions on how to vote and gave details of polling station opening hours.
11.6 The advertisements appeared in most of the national daily and Sunday newspapers together with the Scottish and Welsh press and the ethnic minority press.
11.7 To the best of our knowledge, the newspaper advertisements did not attract any particular comment or criticism.
Television Advertisement
11.8 The television advertisement was designed primarily to inform the public that the leaflet was shortly to be delivered to them but also contained very brief information as to the responsibilities of the European Parliament and emphasised the importance of voting.
11.9 The advertisement ran 1079 times in the period 10-30 May and it is estimated that it was seen at least once by 77% of the adult population. Though some people argued that the advertisement was "too clever", for the most part its use of origami won plaudits for its creativity.
The Leaflet
11.10 The Post Office were contracted to deliver the leaflet to every household in Great Britain - some 26 million in total - in the week beginning 24 May.
11.11 The leaflet was translated into Welsh and 13 other languages as well as being produced in Braille and audiocassette form. A special helpline was set up for people to request copies in these languages and formats. This procedure worked well with over 2,500 requests for alternative language and format versions.
The Performance of the Post Office
11.12 It soon became apparent that in a large number of cases the Post Office failed to deliver the leaflet. The Home Office received - and continues to receive - large numbers of complaints from people all over Britain who had not received their leaflets. [22]
11.13 In some areas the leaflet was delivered long after the due date which negated the impact of the advertising advising people to look out for it.
11.14 In other areas the leaflet was delivered inside or wrapped around political parties' and candidates' election addresses. This was particularly unfortunate as it could have been taken to suggest that the Government was endorsing particular parties or candidates. There were also instances where the explanatory leaflet was delivered inside or around commercial publicity material also being delivered by the Post Office.
11.15 In some parts of Wales the English, monolingual version of the leaflet was delivered instead of the bilingual Welsh version.
11.16 The Home Office was obliged to make an official complaint to the Post Office about the quality of the leaflet delivery. The outcome was that the Post Office apologised for its performance and made a payment to the Government by way of compensation.
11.17 All of this would seem to reinforce the doubts expressed earlier (see chapter 6) about the reliability of the Post Office.
Complaints about the Leaflet's Content
11.18 The leaflet included a sample ballot paper to give voters of indication of what the ballot paper they would be presented with would look like. The sample ballot paper showed those parties represented in the House of Commons [23] together with fictitious parties and individual candidates.
11.19 A number of registered political parties without House of Commons representation which were contesting the election complained that the sample ballot paper in the leaflet might put them at an electoral disadvantage. One of them, the United Kingdom Independence Party, has instigated legal proceedings on this point and these are continuing. In the light of this it would be inappropriate to offer any sort of comment on this matter.
11.20 Plaid Cymru - the Party of Wales also expressed concern that the names in its party list in the Welsh version of the leaflet did not contain the name of anybody who obviously came from an ethnic minority community. The party was concerned that this might be taken as signifying that it was not welcoming to, or did not attract supporters from, members of ethnic minority communities.
11.21 However, the Chief Executive of Plaid Cymru - the Party of Wales did accept, in conversation with the Review Team, that there had been no intention on the part of the Home Office to create any such impression.
Impact of the Publicity Campaign
11.22 Immediately following the leaflet distribution [24], the Central Office of Information, under whose auspices the publicity campaign had been run, undertook an evaluation to assess its effectiveness.
11.23 59% of those questioned were aware of the publicity campaign, with the greatest number recalling the leaflet, followed by the television advertisement.
11.24 Of those who claimed awareness of the leaflet, 55% said that they had read it or glanced at it, as opposed to 44% who had not looked at it all. Those who did look at it generally described it as clear and informative.
11.25 Over 8 out of 10 people questioned were aware that the election was taking place, and over half the people knew the exact date.
11.26 Just under 60% correctly identified that the purpose of the elections was to choose people to represent Britain in the European Parliament. Around a third of potential voters, but 59% of those who had previously voted in European Parliamentary elections, were aware that a new voting system was being used.
11.27 The evaluation summary concluded:
"In so far as it is possible to judge, the publicity campaign achieved a reasonable level of awareness and there are signs that the advertising's intended messages were being communicated...The leaflet was read or looked at by quite a high proportion of potential voters, especially given that the European Elections were not a high interest subject." [25]
11.28 Despite these rather encouraging figures, the actual turnout at the election was disappointing. This suggests that there is only so much that a publicity campaign can achieve. The horse that is the electorate can be led to water but a publicity campaign can not make it drink.
Future Publicity Campaigns
11.29 Despite the difficulties over the leaflet's distribution, the publicity campaign was generally welcomed and has inevitably raised the question of whether something similar should be undertaken at future national elections.
11.30 The first point to make is that these elections were exceptional in that they used a new electoral system. First-past-the-post has been used in all national elections in Great Britain (apart from elections to the University constituencies prior to 1950) since before the introduction of universal suffrage. There has not, therefore, been the same need to explain a new electoral system to the electorate and that is likely to be the case at most future elections.
11.31 The Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill will, when enacted, create an independent Electoral Commission to oversee the electoral process. One of the Commission's functions will be to "promote public awareness of current electoral systems in the United Kingdom and any pending such systems, together with such matters connected with any such existing or pending systems as the Commission may determine".[26] Doubtless the Commission will need to consider whether publicity campaigns in the run up to, and during, elections would help it to fulfil this mandate and would represent a good use of its funds. We hope that in doing so it will wish to draw on the lessons from the Home Office's publicity campaign for this election.
Electoral Procedures
12.1 During the course of this review a number of suggestions have been made to us which relate to electoral procedures. It has been suggested, for example, that the introduction of electronic voting and easing the rules governing absent votes would help improve the rate of turnout. It has also been pointed out with, in our opinion, some justification that the case for weekend or Sunday voting is much stronger in the context of an election where counting of the votes can not begin until Sunday evening.
12.2 However, for the most part these are more general points not unique to European Parliamentary elections. The Working Party on Electoral Procedures, which was chaired by George Howarth (then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Home Office) and whose members included representatives of political parties, local government and electoral administrators, was set up following the 1997 general election to consider what improvements in electoral procedures might be made.
12.3 The Working Party published its conclusions shortly after the European Parliamentary elections in July 1999 and submitted its final report in October 1999.
12.4 Ministers took the decision that immediate legislation should be enacted to give effect to the Working Party's recommendations. The Representation of the People Act 2000 - the piece of legislation which was responsible for the delay in completing this review - received Royal Assent on 9 March 2000.
12.5 That Act introduces a system of "rolling" electoral registration and allows for regulations to be made to make it easier for people to obtain and cast absent votes. The Act allows local authorities to submit applications to run pilot schemes of innovative electoral procedures. At the local elections in May 2000, 32 local authorities ran 38 pilot schemes providing for all postal ballots, electronic voting and counting, early voting and weekend voting. [27]
12.6 In the light of this we have not thought it appropriate or necessary to make any recommendations relating to electoral procedures.
The Performance of the Home Office
12.7 Throughout our discussions with electoral administrators a consistent message emerged. It was suggested, always with infinite politeness, that the performance of the Home Office at these elections - in terms of the service provided to electoral administrators - was not satisfactory.
12.8 Complaints were made about the lateness and format of the regulations and this is dealt with elsewhere in this report.
12.9 However, it was also suggested that other information provided by the Home Office, either in RPA circulars or through the regional returning officers, was inadequate or too late. In part this was a product of the matters referred to in the previous paragraph but there was also a sense among electoral administrators that the Home Office did not make all the information it had available as early as possible.[28]
12.10 Other more basic complaints were that letters did not receive prompt replies, that it was difficult to speak to a member of staff at the Home Office (as opposed to an answerphone) and that when messages were left on answerphones, they were sometimes not returned. Many of these were routine queries from electoral administrators which could have been dealt with instantly.[29] However, despite the difficulties that electoral administrators suffered as a consequence of this, there is no evidence to suggest that any voter was disadvantaged on either 10 June or 13 June.
12.11 Very few specific suggestions were made as to how the situation could be improved but one concrete suggestion, which we endorse, was that there should be a dedicated telephone line at the Home Office - not connected to an answerphone - which should be for the exclusive use of electoral administrators and which should be staffed continuously during the period of any national election.
12.12 In future, following the enactment of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill much of the responsibility for the central management of elections will rest with the Electoral Commission. We trust that the Commission will be alive to the problems that were encountered at these elections and take the necessary steps to prevent any repetition. In particular the Commission will need to recognise that elections inevitably produce large numbers of queries and complaints which need rapid resolution and that sufficient staff resources need to be devoted to dealing with them.
1 Rule 43A (1)
2 Regrettably, the Scottish region was rarely represented at the meetings
of the Training Advisory Panel.
3 RPA 427
4 The question as to whether the United Kingdom should move its voting day
into line with the rest of the EU is beyond the scope of this review. However,
were the United Kingdom to change its polling day(s) for European Parliamentary
Elections to include Sunday the count would presumably begin as soon as
the polls closed and these problems would not arise.
5 "None of the regional results were close enough for it to be likely
that a recount would have changed the outcome." Butler and Westlake,
op cit, p37.
6 Minutes of the Training Advisory Panel, 6 August 1999, paragraph 5.2
7 In this section particularly we have drawn on the excellent study of the
European Parliamentary Elections produced by David Butler and Martin Westlake,
to whom we express our gratitude.
8 The turnout in Northern Ireland was a much healthier 57% but, as noted
in the introduction, this review has not concerned itself with Northern
Ireland.
9 Turnout in the Netherlands and Partugal for the 1994 European Parliamentary
Elections was marginally lower than in the UK.
10 See Butler and Westlake op cit, inter alia pp97, 104, 157, 165
11 For the European Parliamentary elections, political parties were required
to submit a return covering every item of election expenditure wheras at
the 1997 General Election only candidates' constituency expenditure had
to be accounted for, so national expenditure could only be guessed at.
12 For details of media coverage during the election period see Butler and
Westlake op cit, pp97-115.
13 For example, in May 1994 the turnout in English local elections was 42.5%
followed a month later by a turnout of 36% in the European Parliamentary
Elections.
14 ONS Omnibus Survey Module 233, June 1999
15 European Parliament Elections, Qualitative Research Findings, NOP Consumer,
J430558, August 1999
16 Butler and Westlake, op cit, p254
17 Butler and Westlake, op cit, p152 report "no hopers" on the
Conservative list in the South East region comparing hard. In Parliamentary
elections those in hopeless seats may well campaign in order to boost their
chances of being selected for a better prospect at the next election. Exactly
the same argument can apply to those in a lowly position on a party list.
18 See Butler and Westlake, op cit, pp248-9
19 Col 689
20 Similar campaigns were undertaken in advance of the elections to the
Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly in May 1999 and elections to
the Greater London Assembly in May 2000.
21 It has also been suggested that one of the reasons why the campaign attracted
so much attention was the lack of much other campaigning activity in connection
with this election - see Butler and Westlake, op cit, p232.
22 Butler and Westlake, op cit, p 128 refer to "deliveries of the leaflet
in many areas were patchy at best".
23 The Conservatives, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats on the
English version together with the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru
- the Party of Wales on the Scottish and Welsh versions respectively.
24 The fieldwork was done in the period 2-6 June.
25 European Parliament Elections Campaign Tracking, Summary Report, J4287,
June 1999, p4.
26 Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill, clause 12.
27 In addition the elections to the Greater London Authority held on the
same day involved early voting and electronic counting.
28 For example, the detailed Guidance for Local and Regional Returning Officers
was not issued until 5 May 1999.
29 In contrast to the 1997 General Election, the Home Office received far
fewer telephone calls and letters from members of the public with queries
about their electoral registration or about absent vote deadlines. This
is no doubt a reflection of the lower level of interest which European Parliamentary
elections generate. However, had the number of such inquiries which were
made to the Home Office in 1999 been close to the 1997 level, the problems
outlined in this section with would have been compounded.