Reform of Electoral Law in the UK Nicholas Paines QC (Commissioner) Henni Ouahes (Lawyer)

1. Reform of Electoral Law in the UKNicholas Paines QC (Commissioner)Henni Ouahes (Lawyer) SOLACE Electoral Network one day conference 16 January 2014

2. The Law Commission • Established in 1965 to simplify and modernise the law of England and Wales • Chaired by a senior judge, and four Commissioners • Staffed by government lawyers • Law Commissions in Scotland (1965) and Northern Ireland (2007) • Electoral law is a UK-wide, joint project by all three Commissions

3. Electoral law reform project • Proposed by the Electoral Commission and AEA, supported by the Cabinet Office • Three phases of the project: • Scoping stage (ended December 2012) • Substantive law reform (consultation October 2014 and report September 2015) • Draft legislation (published February 2017) • Implementation in time for 2020

4. Project Scope • Focus on electoral administration law – the technical conduct rules and legal challenge, for all elections and referendums. • Also considering legal framework – how to organise electoral laws in the UK • Excludes reform of franchise, boundaries, voting systems, party and national campaign regulation, and fundamental change to institutions. • Law reform, not designing political policy

5. Key problems • Volume, complexity, fragmentation of laws • Election specific legislation for each election: • 15 sets of election rules appended to main provision. • Absent voting rules covered by 3 Acts and 11 secondary measures. • Many norms survive from the Ballot Act 1872. Perhaps out of date or redundant – but nevertheless repeated • Classical (first past the post) rules have to be “transposed” to fit new voting systems. Sometimes transpositions are inconsistent for different elections using the same voting system, like AMS.

6. Our approach • Detailed legislation where needed: • Nominations, form of ballot papers, postal voting process • Best practice, discretion and judgement in guidance • Set out rules within a rational scheme of primary and secondary legislation • Harmonisation and consistency • Harmonise divergent laws • Differences must be justified by voting system or policy • Standardised electoral timetables

7. Some examples • Modernising and simplifying complex and divergent laws: • One nomination paper emanating from the candidate • One polling notice instead of current mixture across elections • Polling district reviews an administrative task for returning officers rather than councils • Streamlined absent voting framework – apply to be a postal voter in GB indefinitely, for a period, or one election day, for all elections and referendums. • Consistent ballot paper design for all elections • Questions about ID at the poll, and postal voting fraud

8. QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION