Weekend voting among changes needed to overhaul UK elections system, officials say | Electoral reform

The UK’s elections system needs a fundamental overhaul including weekend voting and a cut in the number of polling stations, the group representing electoral officials has said.

Years of changes in everything from postal voting to mandatory ID, with more reforms planned, has involved “bolting 21st century voter expectations on to 19th century infrastructure”, the Association of Electoral Administrators (AEA) said.

In a report on how to modernise the system, called New Blueprint for a Modern Electoral Landscape, the group makes dozens of recommendations on everything from postal votes to election timetables, saying the system as it currently exists is increasingly unsustainable.

A particular issue is the difficulty in finding enough staff for the 38,000-plus polling stations used in a general election, which are open for 15 hours, especially given new complexities such as the need to check ID.

Currently, every polling district has to have its own polling station. The report suggests a smaller number of voting hubs, some located in populated areas such as shopping centres.

These could have shorter hours, but people could vote at any centre in their local council area. The report also suggests moving from holding elections on a Thursday to weekends, as happens in most other European countries. This would also mean schools used as polling stations would not need to close.

Another problem highlighted in the report is the growth of postal voting, which the AEA says is “the biggest threat to the safe and secure delivery of any election”.

Before last July’s general election, there were about 1.3m new postal vote applications, it said, which “overwhelmed many electoral registration officers and their teams” who were also trying to manage new voter registrations.

The organisation has called for the deadline to apply for a postal vote to be extended from 11 working days before the poll to 16.

On voter ID, the report suggests expanding the narrow list of eligible documents – something the government is looking at – and consider allowing digital forms of ID.

More widely, it called for a royal commission or a similar process to examine how election processes could be improved.

Peter Stanyon, the AEA’s chief executive, said: “Constant electoral change without fundamental reform has made elections harder than ever to deliver to the standard voters rightly expect.

“With votes from [age] 16 coming to England and UK polls and changes in devolved nations, we can’t continue bolting 21st century voter expectations on to 19th century infrastructure. The risk of failure increases with every change made.”