Daniel Kawczynski – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Daniel Kawczynski on 2016-06-09.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that non-UK citizens who are not eligible to vote are not able to vote in the referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU.

John Penrose

The EU referendum will be overseen by the Chief Counting Officer, chair of the Electoral Commission, who is responsible for making sure the referendum is held in accordance with the legislation governing the conduct of the poll. The Electoral Commission has issued a statement setting out the actions that have been taken to address an issue with elections software used by a number of local authorities in England and Wales that meant that some non-eligible EU citizens had mistakenly received poll cards and, in some instances, postal votes. The Commission explains that the software provider has resolved the issue and none of the affected electors will be shown as eligible on the electoral registers to be used at polling stations on the 23 June. Any incorrectly issued postal votes will be cancelled.