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Plymouth City Council has been slammed by Conservatives and Labour alike after it again registered hundreds of students to vote without their knowledge.

National news website The Sun reports that universities and Labour councils have been accused of doing this "in a bid to boost left-wing turnout" in the General Election.

However PCC has blamed procedural errors - and said "none of the universities are in any way responsible for our error".

It is not the first time the council has come under fire for wrongly registering students to vote.

Back in May this year, former Conservative councillor Steve Ricketts claimed thousands of students had been illegally registered to vote, when he lost the student dominated Drake ward to Labour’s Chaz Singh by just 13 votes. Mr Singh has since quit the Labour Party, saying he felt he was having his "faith and identity compromised".

An Electoral Commission investigation was launched and the probe found that the Council had broken electoral rules.

Regarding this latest incident, PCC has admitted that 850 students and young people had, once again, been "incorrectly added to the register".

Conservative Government minister and parliamentary candidate for the Moor View Ward Johnny Mercer has branded this "unacceptable" and said "it has shattered my faith in their (PCC's) ability to conduct free and fair elections".

(Image: John Allen)

His Political adversary, Labour candidate for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport Luke Pollard, said "the City Council must get on top of these repeated small errors as the media storm around them undermines confidence in the electoral process".

Mr Mercer is one of three Tory candidates in the South West to have written to the Electoral Commission demanding a full investigation, amid suspicions the same process is being carried out nationwide, reports The Sun.

Plymouth City Council has addressed the issue on its 'Newsrooms website', in an article headlined 'Review of data on the electoral register'.

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The statement admits that 850 students and young people had been "incorrectly added to the register" and says this was caused by "the way we electronically mark 16 and 17-year-olds on our electoral system" and the way it used student data".

A council spokesperson told Plymouth Live: "The electoral registration process in entirely independent of elected members and is subject to specific guidance and rules. The council is legally and morally obliged to ensure that as many people as possible are registered to vote.



"We carry out campaigns every year to encourage people to register, providing updates and reminders.



"We follow national guidance on targeting specific groups to encourage registration. As well as students, we also make particular efforts to target people living in care and nursing homes, the homeless and those in shelters, for example.





"We can also clarify that none of the universities are in any way responsible for our error.



"The Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001, requires higher education providers to provide detail of their students name address, date of birth and nationality on an annual basis."

Mr Mercer told Plymouth Live: "I think it's unacceptable. This the third or fourth significant electoral failure by the Local Authority and it comes after the total shambles of the 2017 election

"It has shattered my faith in their ability to conduct free and fair elections."

Mr Mercer said the people he "feels sorry for are people like [former Conservative councillor] Steve Ricketts", who lost the council elections in the student dominated Greenbank ward by just 13 votes.

(Image: Royal Marines)

Luke Pollard told Plymouth Live: "The City Council must get on top of these repeated small errors as the media storm around them undermines confidence in the electoral process. The election team operates without involvement of local councillors - rightly so - but that means they have to get their own house in order.

"I entirely understand why Conservatives seek to attack registering young people as they have little to offer them in terms of policy or hope.

"With one in three young people still not registered to vote let’s have the same energy put into getting every young person on the electoral register.

"Personally I support automatic voter registration not the deliberately complicated and bureaucratic process the Tories have introduced. You and I know they’ve made registering to vote harder and more complicated because it puts more young people and those from poorer backgrounds off from voting and that helps them win more easily. Let’s get everyone registered and let the people cast their votes freely."

Mr Ricketts said: "I don’t like to say this but I am absolutely disgusted by Plymouth City Council (Labour administration) today.

"After the May local election failures they seem to have taken no action to rectify serious flaws in their systems. What must the Electoral Commission be thinking?

"This is either a sustained malicious attempt to influence results for a specific result or complete and utter incompetence...Either way Plymouth City Councils elections department is now officially a national disgrace."

He told Plymouth Live that he believed the the Sutton and Devonport seat - being contested by Labour's Luke Pollard, Ann Widdcombe for the Brexit Party, Conservative Rebecca Smith, Lib Dem Graham Reed and Green Party candidate James Overton Ellwood - would come down to a "few hundred votes", and said the Electoral Commison need to "step in now" or "serious questions will be asked".

PCC 'Review of data on the electoral register'

PCC says: "The electoral register contains more than 192,000 entries and is constantly changing as people move and come of age. The accuracy of the register is the responsibility of the Council’s electoral registration officers. Elected members have emphasised the need for every effort to be made to ensure there are no issues with its accuracy.

"When the snap General Election was called, like all other councils we were in in the process of preparing the electoral register for publication on 1 December. This had to be brought forward to 5 November when an alteration to the register had to be produced.

"However, a further alteration to the register is due to be produced before the final register to be used in the election is published on 5 December.

An issue came to light last week when we were notified that some 17-year-olds in the Plymouth Sutton and Devonport constituency had received poll cards despite not yet being eligible to vote.

"We identified the cause of the problem and have written to 247 under-18s in the Plymouth Sutton and Devonport constituency who may have erroneously been sent polling cards. There is no risk of them being able to vote until they are eligible as they are marked on the current electoral register as not being of age, so would not be given a ballot paper.

"As a result of this we carried out a rigorous review of the data used to compile the register. This has highlighted an issue related to some of the data we have used as part of our ongoing effort to ensure young people can vote in line with national best practice.

"The way this data is electronically marked on our electoral system has led to 850 students and young people incorrectly being added to the register.

"This was caused by two issues:

"1: The way we electronically mark 16 and 17-year-olds on our electoral system

Data about young people who are soon to turn 18 was added to our electoral system last year. These young people were not properly tagged on the system.

"This meant that when they turned 18 some were mistakenly added to the register when it was updated without them having completed an Invitation to Register.

"We are writing to these young people to let them know that they will need to complete an Invitation to Register in order to be placed on the register in time for them to vote on 12 December 2019. We have also updated the system so no ineligible young people are left on the register.

"This tagging issue was also the reason why some 17-year-olds in the Plymouth Sutton and Devonport constituency were sent a poll card.

"2: The way we have used student data.

"We have also identified 635 students on the register who have not completed an Invitation to Register as they are required to do. They had been added to our electoral system but not tagged correctly as they hadn’t individually registered.

"When we identified this issue, 137 had already been sent a poll card. It is unlikely that many of the students were aware that they were on the register as they had not registered themselves. We are writing to all of them to say their entries are being removed and to vote in the General Election they need to register before the deadline at midnight on 26 November.

"We believe we have now identified and resolved the issues with the register. Anyone who shouldn’t have been on the register has been removed, or will be in the next few days through due process. No one entitled to vote has been prevented from doing so.

"We have now put in place further independent quality assurance to continuously assess all our procedures and processes relating to electoral data.



"It is worth noting that around 3,000 people have already applied for individual electoral registration since the election was called.

"We are due to publish a further notice of alteration to the register on 28 November, which will include all the additions and deletions. The final register to be used in the election will be published on 5 December. This is the one that will be use in polling stations.

"There is still time for anyone eligible to register to do so before the deadline on 26 November."



