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Electoral Administration Bill

moved Amendment No. 13:"Page 6, line 31, at end insert—" ““(   )   removing individuals from the electoral register who are no longer eligible to remain on the register”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this is a small part of an electoral registration officer’s duties, but it is important to try to make it clear in the Bill that electoral registration officers have a duty to ensure that individuals who are wrongly on the register are taken off. It was painfully obvious at the recent local government elections that there were people on the register who should not have been. When inquiries were made into where they were, people said that they had not lived there for years. It is important from a number of points of view. There is endless possibility for fraud if information about elections and electoral numbers is being delivered to people who are no longer there and somebody knows they are no longer there. Although people may have died, for example, some time before, they are still on the list and their families are approached. It is also important that one has a proper idea of how many electors are entitled to vote. For all those reasons, we believe that it would make sense for the electoral registration officers to have a duty to ensure that the register is as up-to-date and accurate as it can possibly be, by which we mean taking off those who should not be on the register. I beg to move.