Official Report 222KB pdf
Good morning. Welcome to the third meeting in 2013 of the Referendum (Scotland) Bill Committee. This morning, we will take evidence on the proposed referendum franchise bill, hearing first from Michael de la Haye, the clerk of the States Assembly in Jersey.
I should say that I do not have a direct role in the electoral registration process. However, as clerk of the Assembly, I have a central role in relation to the various authorities and how the franchise works. I work with the political committee that is responsible for the public elections law.
What were the main process challenges that you faced once the decision was made?
I do not think that anyone encountered any major challenges. Voting registration in Jersey is still done largely on a household basis, with a form being sent annually to each household—I believe that that is the case in the United Kingdom, too, although I understand that the system might change soon.
That is a useful overview.
When in 2007 was the law changed?
You might know that the process of the passing of primary legislation in Jersey involves a formal sanction by Her Majesty in council. The in-principle decision on the proposition that was brought by the member whom I mentioned was made in July 2007, and the legislation was adopted by our Assembly in September. The change to the law was a simple, one-line change that involved simply changing “18” to “16”. After the Privy Council process, the change came into force on 1 April 2008. Our elections were held in October that year, so there was a six-month gap between the change and the elections.
I know that the electorate in Jersey is around 82,000—I believe that that was the figure in 2011. You had six months to ascertain who would be eligible to vote in the 2008 election. You have mentioned that you work on the basis of household registration.
That is correct. Fortunately, the April date for the change coming into force was before that year’s annual trawl, so the forms that went out in 2008 encouraged people to include anyone in their household who met the new registration criteria.
If you had been on an individual voter registration system, would that have increased the administrative work?
It is a slightly hypothetical question, as we did not have to think about that, but I suppose that the answer could be that it might have done. I read the Official Report of the evidence that you heard last week about the move to individual registration. It seems that your electoral authorities have quite wide-ranging statutory powers to get into schools and so on. I was surprised that they would be able to get access to school roles, university lists and so on. In Jersey, we would probably have to change our law in order to give us that power.
So, between April 2008 and that year’s election, the electoral registration office conducted a basic trawl of households—canvasses of people who could vote—and then tried to identify the attainers—the 16 and 17-year-olds—on the back of that. Is that correct?
Yes. What we do not have is any sort of reconciliation process with regard to who we think we should have and who we have got. There is no way of verifying that.
I note that about 2,000 16 and 17-year-olds were added to the register and that, as a percentage of the total, that is fairly small. Was there a difficulty in doing that? You have referred to the 12 parishes that deal with the issue. I guess that that work would be fairly small in relation to their overall job of ensuring that the register is up to date.
There is political pressure in Jersey for the parishes to do more. The largest parish, St Helier, where I am talking to you from and which is the capital of Jersey, has about a third of the population. There is a lot of proactive work here involving electoral officers going out and knocking on doors to say, “We don’t seem to have a form from you.” However, there is a feeling that some smaller parishes are perhaps not doing enough. Perhaps in those parishes the feeling is that it is people’s duty to register, that they should come and do it, and that we should not have to knock on doors. You might be right that more could be done, but our perception is that the registration level among the lower age group is probably as good as the average level for the overall voting population. I do not think that it is particularly better or worse.
But, overall, the people who do the registration did not have a huge extra amount of work.
No, I do not think so. As I said, because of the way that the forms went out, households that had been Mr and Mrs Smith simply had to add a 16 or 17-year-old, in the same way as they would have had to do in the past when one of their children became 18.
You have outlined that the data capture is pretty much a manual exercise, in that you do the mailing and you have some follow-up with officers canvassing households and reminding them to register. Do you have any feeling for what the percentage success rate was in the attempt to get 16 and 17-year-olds on to the register?
As I alluded to in a previous answer, the level reached about the same as the general level across the population. In 2011, we had a second set of elections with voting at 16. For that, we did a big push on registration and managed to add 2,000 or 3,000 people to the register across the island. Our perception is that the percentage of 16 and 17-year-olds who are registered is probably about the same as the percentage for the population as a whole. It is not greater or less than the average across the population.
Are any additional data capture measures under consideration to try to improve your success rate, not just with 16 and 17-year-olds but across the population? The aim would be not only to get more people registered but to address the issue that you highlighted earlier about the lack of reconciliation between the register and the potential number of people who have not signed up.
There is something fairly major on the horizon, because the Government of Jersey is about to set up a population database. In effect, that is for monitoring immigration, because the size of the population is a big issue in the island as a result of the pressure on space and accommodation. The committee of our States Assembly that deals with electoral matters has recently had discussions with the Government about whether, in due course, there might be options for data sharing to allow access to the database, as that might be an accurate way of working if we can pin down the residency and other eligibility criteria for voting.
That fits closely with some of the stuff that Patrick Harvie wants to ask about.
I am interested in public awareness and the promotion of the change. The proposal from the deputy who originally proposed the change points out that there was a trawl of schools to begin discussions with young people about the idea. However, when the proposal was going through and, after the change was made, when the forms went out before the election, were other efforts made to raise awareness among 16 and 17-year-olds not only to get them to register but to promote voting? Do different bodies have responsibility for promoting registration and participation in the election?
Largely, that work falls to the Privileges and Procedures Committee. In effect, it does both jobs: it raises awareness of both registration and voting. With hindsight, it is fair to say that in 2008 we perhaps did not do enough to raise awareness. The change was fairly recent, and there was perhaps a feeling that we went into the elections having just changed the voting age and without quite knowing whether young people of that age would be interested in registering and voting.
I suspect that we will all look it up when we get back to our offices. Maybe we will have to recruit Limmy for the campaign in Scotland.
There is no empirical data on that, as we do not record voters’ ages. There would be issues of voter secrecy if we were to trawl through registers and identify who had voted.
I think that we could all empathise with that from time to time.
Good morning, Mr de la Haye. In response to Patrick Harvie’s questions, you explained some of the difficulties that you had in relation to young people. Have any practical difficulties arisen? For example, are 16 and 17-year-olds who go to polling stations ignorant of the process? Is there evidence that they have been put off by the process? Some who oppose the change argue that under-18s are immature, unaware and ignorant of the process and of what is going on, so the voting age should not be lowered.
I am not aware of and have not been told of any practical difficulties. It is difficult to answer your question whether young people have been put off by the process. As I just said to Mr Harvie, the turnout has not been high, so one could argue that they have been put off by the process.
I have a quick supplementary question. Was work done to assess the views of 16 and 17-year-olds on the proposition of lowering the voting age? Politicians and others had a debate, but they were clearly over 18.
The member who brought the matter to the States Assembly for debate was—coincidentally—an assistant minister in the education ministry at the time. She did not wear that hat when she brought the proposition, so it was not an education ministry matter, but she still had that hat. She visited schools and talked to young people. She canvassed opinion and her assessment was that there was quite strong support for the change. However, that did not necessarily translate into young people taking the opportunity when they were given it.
I ask Stuart McMillan for a short question, because I am anxious for us to get to child protection issues before I wind up the session.
Good morning, Mr de la Haye. I seek a wee bit of clarification of something that you said. You highlighted a point in relation to 16 and 17-year-olds, and particularly 16-year-olds, going on the electoral register. When do you undertake to get young people on the register? Does that happen when they turn 16 or when they are 15? I ask because I think you said that someone goes on the register when they turn 16.
That is right. I understand that our law differs from that in the United Kingdom. In Jersey, a person must be 16 before they can apply to be on the register—we have no form of pre-registration, so a 15-year-old cannot register in advance of a particular date.
If that is the case, what is the estimated number of 16-year-olds who have been disenfranchised when an election has occurred because they could not apply to be registered before the closing date for applications?
I have not looked at the statistics but, in theory, the figure should be fairly small. As I said, we do not have an annual cut-off date such as 1 December or 1 August. Registration remains open in effect until the eve of the nomination day for an election, which is usually about three to four weeks before the election. Unfortunately, a small group will turn 16 in those three weeks. If they were politically active, I imagine that they would feel particularly aggrieved, because they would be 16 on voting day.
I have a quick question that relates to Michael de la Haye’s last point. Was the decision about registration taken because of data protection concerns?
No. Your committee’s clerk kindly sent me possible areas of questioning, and I confess that the subject that jumped out at me and which I did not expect was data protection. I wondered where the committee was coming from on data protection.
Tavish Scott has a question about schools.
With regard to the promotion of voting for 16 and 17-year-olds and charges of political indoctrination, did you have any concerns—well, not you personally, but parents, school teachers and others, which I suppose might include you—about politicians’ imposing not the right to vote itself but their political views on that age group? If so, how did you address them?
The very strong message from our education ministry was that individual politicians would not be going into schools to talk to groups of sixth-formers and so on, because it felt that that was simply not right. Schools organised one or two events that, in a very fair and objective way, brought together all the candidates for a sort of youth hustings
Indeed. Was the education ministry reflecting parental concerns? Was the problem being actively raised in letters to local newspapers or in television interviews, or was the issue not as great as might have been envisaged?
No, I do not recall any large groundswell of concern. The main pressure came from the education ministry, which in the 2008 elections firmly said, “We don’t want candidates to go into schools.” For the 2011 elections, it conceded that an event might be put on to which all the candidates would be invited on an impartial basis. As I have said, it was a bit like a youth hustings or some other public meeting for a normal election.
I understand your arguments, but how were politicians able to put their case to this new young group in Jersey who were able to vote and participate in elections if they were not able to access schools? After all, that is where most young people will be.
The candidates had to use the other methods that they used for the rest of the population by, for example, having public meetings to which everyone—including younger voters if they were interested—would be invited. As I am sure is the case in your jurisdiction, most candidates these days have websites and send out leaflets, and supplements that included candidate manifestos were sent out to households.
So schools were out of bounds to politicians.
Except on a very organised, objective and impartial basis. Even though many of them wanted to and thought it wrong that they were not allowed to, candidates could not come into schools one at a time and speak to groups of people.
You mentioned at the outset that the legislation was passed in Jersey by only a narrow margin. Five years on, is there a significant clamour to repeal it and push the voting age back up from 16 to 18?
No. The change has very much been seen as a one-way street or however one might describe it. Although some people and politicians in Jersey remain opposed to the move and will say, “It was a total waste of time. Why did we do it? I was always against it”, I do not think that anyone has ever suggested we should go back. That would be inconceivable.
I am sad to say that those matters are outwith our control at the moment.
Thank you for your very helpful evidence, which has provided us with an overview of what is going on in your jurisdiction. I hope that you enjoy the rest of the winter in your warmer climes.
Thank you, convener. I have to say that the videolink has been very clear.
I suspend the meeting.
We have with us Paul Whitfield, the deputy registrar general of electors (electoral roll) in the States of Guernsey. Welcome to our proceedings, sir. We are grateful to have you with us.
In Guernsey, my role as deputy registrar general of electors involves my wearing two hats, as I am normally chief officer of the Home Department. We have a responsibility for covering the registration part of the election process. In the most recent election, which was in 2012, we put significant effort into engaging with younger voters and had quite a degree of success. You have quite a bit of background information about our structure, but I remind the committee that we do not have a party-political system. We have seven parochial electoral districts, and all candidates stand for 47 independent seats within our Parliament, being known as the States of Deliberation.
That was a very short timescale. Within that timescale, what significant—or insignificant—legislative change was required?
The legislative change related to the Reform (Guernsey) Law of 1948, which was amended to provide a reduction in the voting age from 18 to 16. That had to pass through the States. The timeframe was very short, but the change was approved in the December prior to the 2008 election.
Was it a one-word sort of change in legislation, or was there a more substantial change to the law?
It was not a substantial change. It was an amendment, but it was not a particularly difficult change to make.
Good morning, Mr Whitfield. Did you say that you work on the basis of household registration and not individual voter registration?
Yes. Households are targeted with forms. We also have online registration.
We gathered from the evidence from Mr de la Haye from Jersey that young people there have to be 16 before they go on the roll. What is the position in Guernsey?
We allow our 15-year-olds to pre-register in order to ensure that we capture everybody who will be able to vote at 16 at the time of the election.
That is helpful.
That is correct.
There was a tight timescale because you changed the law in December, the roll closed in January and the election took place in April 2008. Were there practical challenges in addressing that?
There were considerable challenges at the time. Based on evidence that we have, I cannot tell you the degree of success, but young people engaged and voted.
I am not a mathematical genius, as my colleagues will confirm, but I presume that the tight timescale in the 2008 election meant that the number of 15-year-olds was small because the roll closed in January.
Yes. The number would have been small at that particular time.
I am going to introduce some people who have just arrived and whom Paul Whitfield cannot see because they are sitting behind the videoconference camera.
Bearing it in mind that there is, as I understand it, no legal requirement to include the date of birth on the registration form, what is to stop a 15-year-old who will only be 15 at the time of the election registering ahead of an election and voting when they are not yet 16?
Obviously, there are good checks in place at the time of registration and when voting. Also, good information is put out in our awareness campaign about fraudulent behaviour in relation to the registration process and electoral roll. The bailiwick puts a degree of trust in people, and we have seen no significant abuse of the electoral roll.
You said that
No. We do not use the school or education rolls in Guernsey with regard to the electoral roll.
As I understand it, the data capture process is that a letter is sent to the households, which includes a slip that must be filled in. Are there alternative methods of identifying people in the general population, or 16 and 17-year-olds, who should be on the register but have not applied?
That is a difficult question to answer. We engage heavily with colleges and high schools on the island to encourage young people to register. On making a check against those who could be on the roll, we have, obviously, an estimated number of the young people who will be available. For example, for the 2012 election there were 1,270 potential individuals in that age group, and the hope was that they would be captured for engaging with that election.
Thank you.
I am keen that we get evidence on data protection and child protection issues, because we could not get any evidence on those from Michael de la Haye in our previous evidence-taking session. Linda Fabiani will open on that area.
You said that you allowed pre-registration for 15-year-olds and that a note of date of birth could be voluntarily included in that. Were any data protection issues discussed, were any concerns expressed and have any issues arisen since?
Data protection was a consideration, so we spoke to the data protection commissioner. We have some arrangements on which we work closely with Jersey; we share a pan-islands data protection commissioner, for example.
Thank you.
Patrick Harvie had questions on publicity and schools.
You mentioned in passing to one of my colleagues the awareness campaign. During the political debate about whether to make the change, there would have been a level of public awareness. In the months that followed, up to the election, what activities took place to promote not only registration for 16 and 17-year-olds but participation in the election? Do different bodies have responsibility for those different functions?
The political starting point is that there is no party politics in Guernsey. It is considered that because politicians stand for independent seats it would be inappropriate for them to visit schools in an uncontrolled way to engage with pupils about their mandate to vote. However, given our structure and the responsibility of my role and the department, we conducted an extensive campaign with our education department to engage with and encourage young people to be stimulated by the process.
Can you tell us anything about participation of newly-registered 16 and 17-year-olds in the election? Your colleague from Jersey could not break down the turnout statistics for that age group. Are you able to do that?
Sure. It is difficult, because we do not make it compulsory to record date of birth, but more than 600 young people did record their dates of birth—more than 50 per cent of the potential number in that age group registered—and 156 15-year-olds pre-registered and went on to vote in the election. As far as we are concerned, the outcome was positive.
The collection of data is interesting. I understand that you have seven districts. Do they all take part in collecting data, or is there a centralised system?
Two things happen. There are seven electoral districts, but information in relation to the electoral roll is collated centrally.
Okay, thank you. We do not need to go further into that.
I have a wee technical question, which relates to child protection. Because electoral registration is done on a household basis and you include 15-year-old attainers, is there provision for keeping the address of a 15-year-old undisclosed for the purposes of the final register?
I hope that I understood your question correctly. We do not envisage a problem with the roll, because although the occupants are transferred on to the electoral roll after the information on the household has come in, their ages are not shown. Someone who was looking at the roll would not know a person’s age unless the person was familiar to them.
However, if a 15-year-old were the subject of a non-disclosure order in relation to their address, because of difficulties in the family, would there be any way in which their address could be withheld, if they wanted to vote? Could they just be put on as an eligible voter?
I am not sure that I have the answer to that. I can certainly come back to you, if that would be useful.
Thank you.
You said that candidates are not allowed to go into schools, for obvious reasons. Was it permissible for written material from candidates to be distributed to 16 and 17-year-olds in schools?
Indeed, it was. The mandates of all the independent candidates were made widely available, including in schools. Some schools ran mock elections, which included registration and voting. Some of our politicians went into schools, to talk about the purpose of the election process but not to sell a mandate or interest in themselves. They were there to encourage involvement in the electoral process.
I presume that such access was strictly controlled, given the necessity for political balance, in order to avoid allowing a particular candidate to access 16 and 17-year-olds while another could not do so.
That is absolutely right. We worked closely with the education department on how we would introduce anyone who wanted to engage politically with pupils or students. Engagement was purely about awareness of the election process; it was not about individual politicians.
Were the views of 16 and 17-year-olds—and, perhaps, 15-year-olds—canvassed in advance of the change in voting age in order to ascertain their opinions on the lowering of the voting age? Did you come across practical difficulties for young people when they voted in polling stations, or did they find voting as easy or difficult as other members of the population find it?
To answer the first part of the question, before the 2008 election, the House Committee widely distributed a questionnaire to households and young people. It recorded that 56 per cent wanted the voting age to be reduced and 54 per cent said that, if it was reduced, they would certainly vote in the 2008 election.
Thank you. Tavish Scott has some questions.
Stewart Maxwell has pretty much asked the questions that I was going to ask.
There are no further questions, so I thank Paul Whitfield from the States of Guernsey for joining us this morning. I am very grateful to you for giving us your evidence. It has been very helpful in giving us a broader overview of some of the challenges that we might face in Scotland. Thank you. Enjoy the rest of your winter in Guernsey; I am glad for your sake that you are not here. [Laughter.]
Thank you, and thank you for asking me. [Interruption.]
That is my phone ringing.
Just give me two seconds. I think it would be appropriate for me to reprimand myself severely for allowing that to happen, given that I usually tell everyone to switch their phones off at the beginning of meetings.
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