Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Target culture encourages electoral fraud

Today the constitutional affairs minister Bridget Prentice demonstrated the absurdity of this government's target culture.

She was responding to call by Richard Price QC, described by the BBC as an "election law expert" for the government to implement they system of individual registration used in Northern Ireland across the UK.

Prentice was quoted as rejecting this idea because:
"In Northern Ireland the register dropped very markedly after individual registration was brought in and it hasn't really gone back to the same figures again."
But why has voter registration fallen in Northern Ireland fallen since individual registration was introduced?

If it has fallen because people who are entitled to vote do not bother to register, that is a shame - though ultimately it is their fault. If it has fallen because fraudulent registrations have been removed then it is a thoroughly good thing. And remember that having your name on the electoral register can help in financial fraud as well as electoral fraud.

Prentice gives no sign that she knows which of these explanations is the correct one. She seems, in typical New Labour fashion, to be adopting a simplistic target: the more voters on the register the better and hang the consequences.

3 comments:

dreamingspire said...

So why are the opposition parties in the Commons so ineffective at pulling the rug out from under the target culture?

Tom Barney said...

"it is there fault" is it? You've got a right one their.

Jonathan Calder said...

Sorted.