The Electoral Commission is a recent innovation in our democratic system; an experiment that has failed. Originally conceived as filling a circumscribed functionary role (of dubious need in the first place), it was when set up by the Blair Government given a large, intrusive, poorly framed and undemocratic remit, which allows it to sit as policeman, judge, jury, and executioner on those public spirited and blameless citizens who decide to participate actively in elections and referenda.
The Commission has a Head of Regulation with no legal degree, and officials who were widely perceived as biased or political. The Commission passed judgement on, and fined, citizen participants without due process or, it appears, without proper understanding of very basic legal concepts such as “beyond reasonable doubt”; it flouted its own procedural rules without there being any outside body or ombudsman that could be asked to rein it in.
If citizens choosing to be engaged in elections or referenda break the law, the Crown Prosecution Service and the police are there to deal with that, without any need for the Commission. On the other hand, when the police and the CPS decline to prosecute any such incident, it is unconscionable that despite that, unqualified officials at the Electoral Commission can fine those citizens, and post reports on the Commission’s website, that remain posted forever, asserting that the citizens broke the law: all in such a way (as described in detail below) that it can prove almost impossible for the citizens to vindicate themselves.
The police and the CPS are – have to be – well equipped to deal with any infractions of electoral or referendum law; at the end of the day they do, anyway, review any allegations of serious infractions – as they did in the case of Vote Leave.
The Electoral Commission is therefore not just, as discussed above, dangerous; it is also redundant. The Commission should be abolished forthwith, and its functions (but not its extraordinary powers) transferred to the various competent authorities who traditionally ran these matters, some of them for decades and centuries prior to the EC’s existence. It follows that the Commission’s current proposal, that its powers be enlarged, must be rejected out of hand.
On Thursday, 2nd July, the Public Administration & Constitutional Affairs Committee will be holding a formal meeting as part of their inquiry into the Work of the Electoral Commission. In a personal capacity I have made a submission to that inquiry. You can read the full submission here.
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