Electoral watchdog plans £9m voter registration campaign
The Government has put aside more than £9m for a campaign to raise awareness of the new voter registration system that comes into force in July.
Individual Electoral Registration (IER) requires each member of a household to register to vote. At the moment, the “head of the household” is required to supply the names of registered voters at the address.
A DM campaign will begin in July to announce the change. This will be followed by a TV, press and online campaign in the second-half of 2014 and first-half of 2015, ahead of the general election in summer 2015.
Part of the £9.13m allocated will be handed to local electoral registration offices for local community communication campaigns.
The Electoral Commission, the independent election watchdog, will coordinate activity.
Individual Electoral Registration was passed into law last year in an attempt to reduce registration fraud.
