15,000 apathetic households

[Roger Mexico]

I'm sorry but I have never subscribed to the "Manx Muddle" school of thought. We write far too much that goes on here off as general incompetence. Much is far too persistent, and far too widespread and coordinated to just be written off as plain incompetence.

 

Oh I agree they demonstrate at least a level of low cunning at times, especially if it's their own interest. It's just in this particular case I can't see why the politicians would want to.

 

What may be going on is a desire by the civil service to have an easy life, though it may be more due to not knowing what they are doing[1]. To take one example, the initial letter sent out to all households says:

 

Persons to be included in the register must (a) be 16 years of age or over by 30 June 2016, (b) be resident at the address stated on this form and © have been resident in the Island since 31 March 2015

 

 

which is fine for those wishing to vote in the local elections on 28 April. But for those who want to vote in the general election on 22 September, the relevant dates are 30 September and 30 June respectively which means that people who should be registering now are not allowed to[2]. Whether they are going to send out yet another batch of letters in three months time, it looks more like a cock-up than conspiracy.

 

 

[1] Electoral registration now seems to be being done by the External Relations Division rather than Economic Affairs as in previous elections, at least judging by the fact that Della Fletcher is 'Executive Director External Relations' as well as ERO.

 

[2] As far as I can see there's no reason why their details should be taken now, even though they would not be included in the formal register that is issued quarterly. Certainly in the UK it would be practice to ask for details of all people who would turn 18 (16 in Scotland) in the forthcoming 12 months, adding them to the register at the appropriate time.

[Roger Mexico]

Add to the mix these words from Shimmin a week or so back:

 

The Minister said any responses outstanding after that may then be referred to the Attorney General’s chambers. But he said there was ‘no intention of fining anybody for failing to comply with the legislation’. Those no longer eligible to vote will be notified in writing.

Now even the mighty and formidable Shimmin cannot bind any court as to a sentence it might wish to pass (and if he can, we should be told) so the only way he can make such a statement is that there will be no prosecutions. So why the threats on the forms, you might ask.

 

That's not quite what Shimmin said if you look at the actual discussion in Hansard (for the House of Keys 28 January). Harmer had asked What steps are being taken to ensure that the electoral register is complete and accurate ahead of the 2016 elections? Presumably he had come across a lot of omissions and mistakes while canvassing in the by-election. However he also was worried about the fines and wanted reassurance that people would only be fined after having been reminded and so on. Shimmin replied:

 

If I can make it clear, there is no intention to fine anybody for failing to comply with the legislation. We are aware that the legislation[1] is out of date and has fallen into a question mark because of the times it has been cleansed; and people are unsure about their status. I would urge Hon. Members and indeed the public to get in touch with the Electoral Registration Officer in the Cabinet Office if there is any doubt about their on-the-form registers.

The reality is that the warnings that were not given in the past will be given this time. There will be a reminder going out on 1st February for those not already included and they will have until 19th February to return their forms. We want to do this by working with the public, rather than being punitive.

Even by the standards of Tynwald this is unclear, but I suspect it means that he was trying to reassure Harmer that there would be no immediate prosecutions rather than they would never prosecute. I suspect that it would be rather like the situation with the Census where they drop the case if you eventually fill the form in, no matter how late in the day.

The discussion was enlivened by Houghton's demand that people who weren't on the register should be written to by name rather than a letter being sent to the occupier of an address. Shimmin had to patiently point out that if the electoral registration office knew the names in the first place they wouldn't be writing to them as 'the Occupier'. I'm still not sure that Houghton got it.

There is a point here about getting the correct information from other sources. There may be some data protection issues, but probably less than some imagine. Indeed the legislation specifically instructs local authorities and the Registry to cooperate with the compiling of the electoral register. A more relevant worry may be whether those compiling it are that bothered about the accuracy or completeness. Certainly there is no attempt to do a house-to-house canvass according to Shimmin[2] and there seems little enthusiasm for using information from other sources to check for people missed off. As usual with the civil service you suspect that the thinking is that id you do exactly what was done the previous time (no matter how expensive or inefficient), nobody will criticise.

[1] I'm pretty sure from the context he said (or meant to say) 'register' here, not 'legislation'.

[2] The irony here is that at the same time such a thing is being deemed too expensive, another part of the Cabinet Office will be doing exactly this for the Census.

[notwell]

" I'm still not sure that Houghton got it."

To be fair he couldn't get whether his pension contribution had been deducted from his salary.

[Kopek]

To be even more fair, he's probably right to presume that the majority of names they 'believe' live at that address, do in fact, still live there!

[Jam_Sandwich]

Still got mine sat on the table.

I intend to fill it in.

Just marveling at the ineptness of the department though considering I only updated there records in December for this address.

[thesultanofsheight]

Same here. Filled the form in and posted it back at Christmas. Got another form last week addressed to the occupier asking for exactly the same information again. I can only assume they're trying to save money on toilet paper by using completed registration forms instead. It hardly inspires any confidence at all.