Background
3.The Electoral Administration Act, incorporates proposals affecting the administration and regulation of elections in the United Kingdom (UK).
4.The Electoral Administration Act will introduce new measures working towards three key objectives:
	access to voting for all (everyone able to vote);
	highest possible turnout (everyone wants to vote); and
	lowest possible fraud (no one abuses the vote).
5.Many of the proposals in the Act have emerged from a series of detailed studies and consultations carried out by the independent Electoral Commission from 2002/3. Following extensive consultation with the electoral community after the 2001 General Election, the Electoral Commission produced several reports recommending changes to the current administration of elections, culminating in two main reports, Voting for change (June 2003) and Delivering democracy? The future of postal voting (December 2004). The recommendations in these reports are aimed at improving the integrity, security and convenience for the electorate at UK elections.
6.The Government’s responses to the reports Voting for change and Delivering democracy? The future of postal voting were published and announced as command papers in December 2004.
7.Following the Birmingham elections court case (2005) and allegations of fraud at the May 2005 General Election, none of which have resulted to date in prosecution, the Government undertook policy discussions with its stakeholders on a range of proposals aimed at safeguarding the integrity of the electoral system.
8.A Government policy discussion paper was published between May 23 – June 10, and over 160 responses were received on the proposals, by the deadline. Discussion meetings were also held with the Association of Electoral Administrators, other returning officers and administrators, suppliers of electoral services and the political parties. On the basis of these comments and responses received during the discussions, the Government recommended a package of additional proposals, primarily focussing on security, to be included in the Act. These also took into account the recommendations of the Electoral Commission’s Securing the vote report, published in May 2005.
9.The Government’s response to Securing the vote was published at the time of the introduction of the Bill for this Act in October 2005.
10.The Act is also part of a wider Government programme of modernising the electoral system, to make it more convenient and accessible, and to pave the way for secure multi-channel voting options. This is necessary for achievement of the Government’s target of an “e-enabled general election sometime after 2006”.