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Electoral Registration

Answer

I have been asked to reply.The Information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician who has been asked to reply.Letter from Karen Dunnell to Mr. Chris Ruane, dated 11 November 2005:"As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your question concerning the percentage electoral registration rate in each Local Authority area. (26409)""The Office for National Statistics is not able to calculate percentage electoral registration rates: the resident population aged 18 and over is not the same as the number of people eligible to vote. However, the Office for National Statistics does on occasion publish comparisons of the resident population of voting age (aged 18 and over) and the number of people who are registered to vote. These comparisons provide the closest available approximations to the information you requested.""The tables, which will be placed in the House of Commons Library, give comparisons between the number of registered electors and the estimated mid-2004 population for local authorities in the UK. Table 1 shows a comparison against parliamentary electorate and Table 2 against local/European electorate. Please note Table 1 refers to Great Britain only as Northern Ireland are unable to provide Parliamentary electorates for local authority areas. In order to give an estimate of the number of electors at the mid-year point, 30 June 2003, a weighted average is taken of the 1 December 2002 and 1 December 2003 electoral data.""The local/European electorate gives a better comparison than parliamentary electorate to resident population as EU citizens are included and UK citizens resident abroad are excluded from the local/European electorate. However, a number of other difficulties remain when comparing these sources. For example not everyone who is usually resident is entitled to vote (foreign citizens from outside of the EU and Commonwealth, prisoners, etc. are not eligible) and people who have more than one address may register in more than one place. These factors may have a different impact from place to place.""There is inevitably some double counting of the registered electorate (both parliamentary and local/European) as electoral registration officers vary in how quickly they remove people from the registers after they have moved away from an area or after they have died. This is the main reason some areas show apparent rates in excess of one hundred per cent.""Any comparison of these data with figures for previous years should be made carefully as electoral legislation and other changes (such as EU expansion) can change the size of the electorate."

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

26409; 439 c1886-7W;439 ( Not in Bound volume)

Session

2005-06

Related items

Electoral Registration
Friday, 11 November 2005
Written questions
House of Commons

Subjects

Electorate Electoral register

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk