Lord Rennard – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Rennard on 2016-10-20.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many allegations of personation were made to the police in respect of the EU referendum, how many of these are under active investigation, and what proportion this represents of votes cast in the referendum.

Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen

The Electoral Commission’s report on the EU Referendum has found that at the referendum there were 19 allegations relating to personation at a polling station and that following police inquiries, five of these cases have been resolved as no further action required, one resulted in a caution being accepted, and the remaining 13 are still under investigation. The Commission’s report states that 33,577,342 votes were cast at the referendum. The Government is currently considering the recommendations of the independent review by my Rt Hon Friend, the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Sir Eric Pickles), which includes recommendations on tackling the scope for personation and introducing voter ID at polling stations.