A transparent, fair and efficient electoral system is an essential foundation for democracy. This is particularly so in the UK, where we have a proud tradition as pioneers of effective electoral process and have historically enjoyed a strong, just democratic system. Yet it is a sad fact of political life under this Labour Government that public confidence in the electoral process is extremely low, and continues to decline. Turnout has been favoured over security of the poll, and gimmicks like e-voting piloted at the expense of robust and trusted methods. The UK's hard fought position as democratic trendsetter continues to subside under suspicions of fraud, bribery and corruption.
The Labour government is now well placed to remedy the many faults of the system with the Political Parties and Elections Bill but it has been an uphill struggle to steer this legislation in the right direction. Frustratingly, the government has used the Bill as a battleground for political point scoring and internal squabbling. For instance, by stubbornly rejecting Conservative amendments to introduce Individual Voter Registration which would be a vital step in securing the integrity of the ballot by ensuring an accurate electoral register.
Worse still, a number of proposed measures will only serve to further cast doubt on the legitimacy of the democratic process. Powers of entry for the Electoral Commission could see the extension of arbitrary and unjustified invasions of liberty. The declaration system for donations is virtually unworkable and could actually discourage engagement with the political system. Proposed funding thresholds and bringing back the defunct "triggering" system (yes- back to the unworkable old PPC rules) are intended to reduce our ability to campaign. In practice they will only expose the Labour party's inability to raise money or motivate their own volunteers.
As we (slowly) progressed with the Bill through Committee, the Government's position was shown to be unsustainable. As a result, we have forced them to re-address a significant number of these issues are now to be re-addressed. So now we wait for their proposed amendments. Will they rise to the challenge before our colleagues in the Lords feast on the carcass of this Bill? We shall see.
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