Lord Chadlington – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Chadlington on 2016-05-18.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that women in safe houses and refuges who need to keep their address anonymous are not prevented from voting.

Lord Bridges of Headley

Electors who need to keep their name and address anonymous are able to submit an application for anonymous registration. As part of their application, electors must satisfy the Electoral Registration Officer that their safety, or that of people they live with, would be at risk if the register contained their name and address. For this purpose electors must provide either a court order or an attestation by a “qualifying officer”, which includes senior police officers and chief social workers. The evidential threshold for applications for anonymous electoral registration is to ensure that it is available only to those whose personal safety would genuinely be at risk if their details appeared on the electoral register, rather than for the purpose of gaining additional privacy.