The Electoral Commission’s document : ‘Individual Electoral Registration Guidance Part 4 - Maintaining The Register Throughout The Year’ Revised in April 2015 outlines the duties of Electoral Registration Officers in maintaining an up to date electoral register :
You have a duty under Section 9A of the Representation of the People Act (RPA) 1983 to take all necessary steps to comply with the duty to maintain the electoral register and to ensure, as far as is reasonably practicable, that all those eligible - and no others - are registered in it.
A proactive approach is required throughout the year and not just during the canvass period in order to maintain accurate and complete registers, ensuring as far as possible that all eligible persons are on the register and that all non-eligible persons are removed
As part of your duty to take all necessary steps to maintain the register you should undertake activity throughout the year to identify people who are not registered individually and encourage them to register. These individuals will fall into one of two categories :
It goes on to state:
To meet your section 9A duties you are required to undertake house-to-house enquiries throughout the year and you should have the necessary staff in place to carry out these visits. These staff can be used not only for making enquiries and to follow up with people who have not responded to an invitation to register, but also to: identify any changes to properties, such as new buildings or alterations to:
Finally the document is very specific regarding the duty to canvass saying :
If you have given a third invitation and no application to register has been made, you are required to law to make at least one visit to the address for the purpose of encouraging an application to be made, if you have not already done so
You can choose to make a visit at any time in the process, for example at the same time as delivering any of the invitations. You may therefore have met this requirement before the end of the period for making an application following the third invitation. You must, however, have made a visit specifically for the purpose of encouraging registration. In our view, this means a visit where you have attempted to make contact personally with the person you are inviting
If you have made a visit only for the purpose of leaving a form at the address and no attempt was made to contact the person being invited, this would not in our view satisfy the requirement. If, however, on such a visit the person making the visit spoke to the person being invited and encouraged them to make an application, the requirement to have made a visit will have been satisfied. As with all stages of this process, you should ensure that you keep records for the purpose of having a clear audit trail of the steps that you have taken as part of the invitation to register process. This will also help to ensure that, where you are considering requiring a person to make an application (see paragraph 3.24), you are able to establish that the prerequisites for making such a requirement have been met
You should in any case consider making a further visit if this is likely to result in an application being made
If no application is made in response to the third invitation and you have made at least one visit to the address, you can move to the next stage of requiring the person to make a new application to register by giving them notice in writing of the requirement
Data Tracking can help in these areas as we provide a complete service from January to December and are not just restricted to working within the traditional canvas period.
We can be your canvassing arm and help you maintain your register at all times of the year.
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