Walker Holly: Electoral Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWalker Holly: Electoral Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 18 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16739. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]HOLLY WALKER (Green):I do not believe that the microphone was turned on Mr Assistant Speaker but thank you. The Green Party takes electoral reform very seriously. The fate of the MPs and the parties that are currently represented in Parliament may wax and wane but if the system for electing them is robust democratic and fair then we can all have confidence in our Parliament.In the Green Party we have always engaged constructively with any moves to alter this electoral system such as the review of MMP that followed the referendum and such as the inquiry into the 2011 general election which gave rise to this bill the Electoral Amendment Bill. We share the view that where possible changes to the electoral system should be made with a high degree of political consensus so that the public can have confidence that the electoral system and the changes to it have not been politicised. Unfortunately in the case of both the MMP review and now this bill that consensus has broken down.I sat on the Justice and Electoral Committee which conducted the inquiry into the 2011 general election. It was my first experience of a select committee inquiry. Although we got bogged down at times and it took probably longer than it should have I was very proud of the report that the committee produced. There was genuine cross-party consensus for the recommendations in that report and they were good recommendations. This bill before the House today as it was originally drafted was based on those recommendations and that is why we in the Green Party supported it. In particular we strongly support the move to full online enrolment which removes the considerable barrier for people to get on to the electoral roll and vote. Under the status quo although it is possible to update your enrolment details online you still have to sign and send back a form to complete that enrolment process. For many people the envelope gets lost in the pile on the kitchen table gets lost in the mail or the car or somehow falls through the cracks and it does not happen. So allowing full online enrolment using the RealMe electronic identification system would allow the full process to happen online. It is a really positive step towards maximising enrolment and voter turnout. We continue to strongly support it.We also strongly support the provisions in this bill to tighten rules around the disclosure of donations—specifically the new rule that loans to a political party or candidate will be treated as donations and disclosed accordingly. This removes the loophole that allowed donors to call their donation a loan in order to avoid disclosure but then to forgive that loan after the election meaning that it never got declared. Removing that loophole is a really important step towards transparency and open government.There are a number of other smaller changes in the bill that we also strongly support. But although we consider that much of this bill is positive we are unable to support it at its third reading today. There are two reasons for this. The first is the deletion of the clauses that would have modernised the use of the EasyVote card to streamline processes on election day. Secondly and more important is the inclusion of a requirement that a voter must make a verbal confirmation of their identity before they can vote. Both of these changes were made by the select committee despite the fact that the very same select committee albeit with slightly different membership had already agreed to the recommendations of the 2011 election inquiry. So effectively the committee reversed some of its own recommendations. I was not present for the committee’s deliberations as I was on parental leave during the last part of last year but my understanding is that these changes were made out of an apparent concern that the use of the EasyVote card on election day could contribute to an increased risk of electoral fraud. We have heard a little bit about that in this debate so far. This assumption is simply wrong. The EasyVote card as members know is a card listing the voter’s name address and the line and page number where their name appears on the electoral roll. It makes it easier and faster for polling booth staff to find them on the roll and to issue their voting papers on election day. For voters for whom English is a second language or who have speech hearing or other impairments it makes the process of voting much easier and less intimidating because all they need to do is hand over a card and their voting paper can be issued with minimal opportunity for stress or confusion.It is not an ID card. Yes it is theoretically possible that somebody could take an EasyVote card belonging to another voter along to a polling booth and use it to cast a vote in their name. It is equally possible that someone intent on doing this could go along to a polling booth and give someone else’s name and address. The risk is neither increased nor decreased by the use of the EasyVote card. The one example of electoral fraud that has been raised by Scott Simpson in this debate is not relevant to this debate for two reasons. First of all it applied to local elections not a general election and second of all and more important it was picked up by the processes in place to check these things and subsequently that person was prosecuted. In the minute number of cases when this happens it gets picked up by the Electoral Commission. If for example somebody took someone else’s EasyVote card along to a booth and tried to cast a vote in that person’s name it gets picked up when the genuine voter goes later on and casts their own vote and it is found that someone else has already voted in their name. There are systems in place. It hardly ever happens but when it does the Electoral Commission has robust processes in place to act and to deal with it.The proposal in this bill as it was originally drafted was to make the EasyVote card scannable so that the Electoral Commission could use it as a record of a vote cast and electronically cross the voter off the roll more quickly and easily—in fact making it more easy to pick up instances of fraud. That was a sensible change that would not have changed the use of the EasyVote card from the voter’s perspective at all. Therefore the fear that this bill would lead to the greater use of the EasyVote card and that this in turn could lead to greater electoral fraud is simply wrong. At best this was an erroneous fear that should have been corrected and people reassured at the select committee. At worst it is a deliberate red herring. Either way I and a number of our Labour colleagues realised this mistake and offered Supplementary Order Papers during the Committee stage to reinstate the clauses related to the EasyVote card and allow the Electoral Commission to proceed with its plans to improve its back-end processes on election day. These Supplementary Order Papers were rejected with no rationale provided by the Government and that is a real shame.Furthermore seemingly in response to the same fear about fraud a new requirement has been introduced that voters must verbally confirm their identity to polling booth staff when they hand over their EasyVote card. This is unnecessary. Again it neither increases nor decreases the risk of fraud because somebody set on committing electoral fraud could simply say that they were the person in whose name they were seeking to vote. But for those voters whom I mentioned earlier—those with impairments or those for whom English is a second language or those for whom simply getting out to vote and engaging with the polling booth staff is a scary prospect for whatever reason—this adds a barrier to voting. It is a completely unnecessary and useless barrier but it is a barrier none the less.For some voters the outcome of having to give that verbal confirmation could be that they choose not to engage with the system and that they choose not to vote. Some members of this House will roll their eyes and say that it is hardly a major barrier. This bill indeed provides for voters to use a gesture—a poorly conceived inclusion—to cover voters with impairments if they are unable to verbally confirm but I put it to those members that we as largely able politically engaged high-status individuals in this House are in no position to judge what barriers those marginalised citizens might experience when it comes to voting. It should be our role to ensure that our electoral law makes it as easy as possible for anyone and everyone who is eligible to vote to cast their vote and that means not adding a useless and frankly quite insulting requirement to verbally or by gesture confirm one’s identity at the polling booth. If even a handful of voters choose not to exercise their right to vote because of this additional barrier that we are putting in place today then that will reflect very badly indeed on this House.It is chiefly for this reason that the Green Party has withdrawn our support for this bill at its third reading. We continue to support many of its provisions especially for online enrolment and for the disclosure of loans as donations but we cannot support any legislation in this House that adds for some of our most marginalised citizens a barrier to voting and we are disappointed that this House did not see fit to work together constructively to remove that barrier before we reached the third reading today.