I have created a flowchart to show this as I really do not think people know how the system of Individual Electoral registration works.
These notes expand on that.
Register to Vote.
Responsibility for preparing electoral registers was taken away from the overseers of the poor and given to local authorities with the passage of the Representation of the people act 1918. The ‘head of household’ was responsible for registering everyone who lived at the address.
The electoral registration system was changed again with the passage of the Electoral registration and administration act 2013. The new system is called Individual Electoral Registration (IER).
This gave everyone who is eligible to vote control over their own registration.
It introduced a new online application process, IER Digital Service, managed by the Cabinet Office. This allows for the personal data provided by the applicant, to be matched with data held by the Department of Work & Pensions (DWP), in order to verify the identity of the applicant.
The transition to IER began in June 2014 in England and Wales and September in Scotland, following the Independence Referendum.
During the transition almost 90% of those already on the register were automatically data matched and added to the new register. Those people who were not successfully matched were invited to register to vote.
If you don’t know whether you are registered to vote, it’s possible to check under this new system by contacting the Elections Office at your local authority.
Personal Data required for IER application which is input to IER Digital Service online by an Applicant or from the Local Authority uploading information via their Electoral Management System (EMS) which was received from a paper application form.
• The applicant’s full name.
• The address where the applicant is resident on the date of the application and in respect of which they are applying to be registered.
• Any address where the applicant has ceased to reside in the 12 months prior to the date of the application and, where that address is not in the UK, an indication of whether that person was registered as an overseas elector during this period.
• An indication of whether the applicant is resident at any other address, including any address where the applicant is currently registered and claims to be entitled to remain registered.
• The applicant’s date of birth or, if they are unable to provide this information, the reason why they are not able to do so and a statement as to whether the applicant is under 18 years old or aged 76 or over.
• The applicant’s National Insurance Number or, if they are not able to provide this information, the reason they are not able to do so.
• The applicant’s nationality or nationalities or, if they are not able to provide this information, the reason why they are not able to do so.
• An indication of whether the applicant requests their name to be omitted from the edited register.
• A declaration that the contents of the application are true (in practice, on the paper form, this will involve a signature or at least a mark on the form that shows that they have made the declaration).
• The date of the application.
This data is matched with the DWP CIS database which is an amalgamated data source, consisting of information received from internal DWP systems, as well as other government sources, such as HMRC and possibly DVSA.
In order to perform the data match, DWP have developed an algorithm which matches the applicant’s personal identifiers (full name, National Insurance Number [NINo], and date of birth [DOB]) sent to them via the IER Digital Service, against the CIS database.
The DWP matching algorithm works like a filter, the stages of which can be broadly summarised as:
• The identifiers contained in the personal record are standardised by DWP to make them more consistent with the DWP dataset (e.g. removal of spaces and hyphens from NINo)
• The personal record is compared to the records in the DWP dataset, following a sequence of matching operations:
1. Is there a record in the DWP dataset with a NINo that matches the NINo provided? If not, the personal record is flagged as No Match and no further matches are attempted.
2. Does the DWP record identified at step 1 have a DOB that matches the DOB provided? If not, the personal record is flagged as No Match.
3. Do the names on the DWP record identified at step 1 match the names provided? A series of name matches are carried out until the best match is obtained.
4. The end result is a series of match statements that describe the levels at which a record has ‘passed’ or ‘failed’ against a series of matching criteria.
5. The level of match obtained is reported back to the IER Digital Service which assigns a score to the results, indicating either success or failure.
6. The match results plus the score assigned to them are passed to the Local Authority EMS where they are displayed to the Electoral Registration OFFICE (ERO) within 24 hours.
Applicants whose identity can be verified through the DWP match are added to the register of electors at the next available update, providing the eligibility criteria (age, nationality, residence) have been met and the applicant has been positively determined.
The Local Authority must then confirm in writing that the application has been successful and must include the date that the applicant will be added to the register.
For further details and information the Local Authority must take if an applicant’s identity cannot be verified see: https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/sites/default/files/2019-11/Part%204%20Maintaining%20the%20register%20throughout%20the%20year_0.pdf
<img src=”https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6052893853873989517#editor/target=post;postID=3834176856706812992;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=0;src=postname” alt=”Register to Vote Flowchart” />