Post in Avoiding fraud in elections

May 05 11:17 UTC

On 5 May 2008, at 11:42, Stephanie Jenkins wrote:
> Dermot: if I had known, you could have borrowed my son's voting
> card, which was going spare :-)

I had a total of about 70 going spare.  And still I lost! (joke!  two
of our blocks at Morrell Hall are being used for single semester
exchange students who were registered in September and left at
Christmas).

> My son is a student and is still loosely based at home in
> Headington (when there isn't somewhere better to go).  So I leave
> him on the Oxford electoral roll.  But he is also automatically
> registered to vote by his university.

Point to note - I'm pretty sure that the university is only obliged
to register students who live in property they own own or allocate
people to.  I think we only register people in halls and university
managed houses for example and in following years they have to do it
for themselves when they're living out.

> Last week he chose physically to vote in his university town rather
> than to get a postal vote in Headington, and used his second card.
>
> There must be many students who potentially have two votes, and I
> wonder if anyone bothers to check that they don't vote twice?  If
> not, this is one loophole that definitely needs plugging.

On the contrary, we encourage people to use both their votes as they
are entitled to do (in local elections that is).  You may vote once
in each jurisdiction you are registered in - so for locals, assuming
your home is not Oxford you'd be entitled to vote here and at home;
for generals you have to choose because both home and college are
electing to the same body - Westminster.

> It also makes the turnout appear even lower than it is already,
> since a student can only vote in one place so will presumably be
> counted in the percentage of non-voters in the other.
>
> Also there is a quick turnover in some Headington HMOs, which means
> that many voting cards are probably delivered after students (and
> other short-term tenants) have moved out, and anyone of the right
> sex could use them.

Whilst there were concerns about using the electoral roll to check
against poll tax evaders I think nowadays it would be possible, for
example, for the council tax offices to prompt people to reregister
when they hand in their council tax student exemption certificate for
each property.  Next year may be especially difficult if they move
the counties to be on the same day as the European elections since
Brookes' semester will be finished by the time of the Euros and
people will have moved out of halls, either straight into a living
out arrangement ready for the following year or away from Oxford for
a while till their next year house is available.