Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 18 October 2017 to Question 9559, on electronic voting, whether he plans to trial postal votes only for parish or town council elections.

The Government has no intention of mandating postal votes for local and parish council elections. It is the Government’s position that electors should have the choice between voting in person, by proxy or through a postal vote.

Furthermore, mandating postal voting in any poll would require all electors to provide ‘postal vote identifiers’ (e.g. signature and date of birth as are used now) to support voters securely casting a postal ballot. The Government is concerned that this would suppress turnout, and that mandating postal voting for a particular type of poll would ultimately prejudice some electors by making it harder for them to vote.