The government’s minister for democracy Rushanara Ali has suggested that she and her colleagues will be keeping a close eye on current exercises to use data to identity eligible electors

To help make good on a manifesto pledge, ministers in the UK government are “following with interest” trials of the automatic registration of voters currently being run by the devolved administration in Wales.

The Welsh Government last month announced that four local authorities – Carmarthenshire, Powys, Gwynedd, and Newport – will be running pilots encompassing various potential means of automatically registering eligible voters for the electoral roll.

This includes councils assessing their own information to “identify and verify potential electors” as well as using other “locally held data” sources. Trials ongoing in Gwynedd will also feature “outreach work targeting harder-to-reach communities”.  

The Welsh Government indicated that it “will evaluate the pilots by the end of this year… [and] will then consider the findings before making decisions on any nationwide implementation of automatic voter registration, which would require further legislation”.

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Also keeping an eye on developments will be the Westminster administration, according to democracy minister Rushanara Ali.

“UK government and Welsh Government officials are in regular contact on a range of electoral conduct and registration topics, including the Welsh Government’s pilots on automatic electoral registration,” she said, in answer to a written parliamentary question from Conservative MP Kevin Hollinrake. “We are exploring a wide range of options to deliver on the manifesto commitment to improve electoral registration including making greater use of public data and digital services. We are following the Welsh pilots with interest.”

Any potential new voters identified as part of the pilots will be sent “notification letters explaining the process and their options, including the right to opt out, with a 60-day response period before addition to the register”.

All those who are added will not also feature on the electoral register’s open version, the data from which can be used for marketing purposes.