Item 3 this afternoon is a statement by the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution—the publication of the electoral administration and reform White Paper. I call on the Counsel General, Mick Antoniw.

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. Today I present our electoral administration and reform White Paper. In this paper, we consult on our proposals for electoral reform and the next steps for modernising electoral administration in Wales. The consultation will run until 10 January. Our proposals are another step on our journey to build a twenty-first century electoral system—a system that increases voter participation so that every citizen can play a full part in our democracy.

I'll begin by reminding Members of some of the things that we have done already. During the fifth Senedd, we extended the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds, and qualifying foreign citizens. This was done through the Senedd and Elections (Wales) Act 2020 and the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021. I'm proud that young people, and those who have chosen to make Wales their home, now have a say in the running of their country. 

Dirprwy Lywydd, last July I published a clear framework for electoral reform with six principles reflecting the values of social justice and the value we place upon democracy in Wales: equity, accessibility, participation, improved citizen experience, simplicity and integrity. The White Paper we are publishing today asks for views on these principles. We want to use these clear principles as a benchmark or to benchmark electoral reform and guide our work to support democratic engagement and participation, and we want to make sure they command broad support.

Just over five months ago, we successfully delivered a set of electoral innovations at the May local elections in partnership with four authorities and the wider electoral community. First, we supported four councils piloting new ways of voting, giving people increased flexibility on the time and location of voting. We maximised voter registration by investing in increased capacity in local authority election teams, and tailored communications to target newly enfranchised groups. We supported the third sector and schools in engaging better with young people by providing opportunities to increase awareness and understanding of politics and citizenship. Finally, we introduced changes aimed at improving postal vote statement error rates. So, we're trying new things in Wales and learning lessons from our efforts with partners that share our ambition of increasing democratic health in Wales.

Having completed the cycle of Senedd and local government ordinary elections, the time is now right to accelerate our reform agenda in anticipation of the next major devolved elections in 2026 and 2027. Our White Paper sets out an ambitious long-term vision agenda for modernising electoral administration and wider electoral reform, supporting delivery of our programme for government commitment to reform local government elections to reduce the democratic deficit. This complements work under way to deliver the reform of the Senedd that Members have agreed for 2026 onwards.

So, we invite views on a mixture of non-legislative propositions to promote engagement in elections, to make standing for election safer and more straightforward. We also want to know what voters think about our proposals for legislation to modernise the administration of elections, improve the conduct of electoral and community reviews for local government, and consolidate electoral law, to be introduced during this Senedd. Finally, we set out our longer term propositions for electoral reform to support Welsh democracy in the future. Our proposals stand in contrast to many of the actions pursued by the UK Government, which seem designed to make it harder for people to vote in UK elections. I want to be clear: our priority is maximising participation, rather than creating barriers in tackling a phantom of electoral fraud.

May I turn to look to some of the highlights in the White Paper? In support of our principle of accessibility, we set out measures to support disabled voters and ways to support more diverse candidates for elected office, including extending the access to elected office fund, and measures to support candidate safety. To support our principle of participation, we set out how automatic voter registration could operate, which we want to pilot. We also ask for views on improved information for voters, and to set out improvements to how electoral reviews are conducted. In support of our principle of equity, we ask whether more should be done to treat English and Welsh equally in the electoral process, and to make suggestions for how we can improve under-registration for people like students. To support our principle of an improved citizen experience, we ask whether voting should be taken forward following our pilots, and how existing processes like proxy or absent voting could be improved as part of a clear vision for digital democracy. To support our principle of simplicity, we suggest restating the franchise for Welsh elections to reduce complexity, and ask about harmonising campaign finance requirements for devolved and reserved elections. And to support our principle of integrity, we propose creating a new electoral management board to ensure resilience in how elections are administered, and a merger of the independent remuneration panel and the Local Democracy and Boundary Commission for Wales to build on their existing strengths. 

The Welsh Government is deeply grateful to all those who make our democracy work, from the people who put themselves forward to work for their community as candidates for electoral office, to the administrators that work so hard behind the scenes throughout the year to make sure that our democratic processes work smoothly, and to everyone who explains how the system works to their friends, neighbours and young people, and to the voters at the heart of our democracy.

We've only had responsibility for Welsh elections for four years, and building a twenty-first century electoral system that increases voter participation, so that every citizen can play a full part in our democracy, will take time. I look forward to hearing from views across the country on our White Paper—voters, administrators, campaigners and experts. Our democracy belongs to us all, and we all have a stake in making sure that it is fit for the future. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you, Minister, for your statement and the advance copy of it that you shared with me.

I have to say that I'm not adverse to making changes to the voting system. I'm not adverse to making changes to electoral administration, or indeed, reform, if that is necessary. But we do have a successful record of delivering fair elections here in Wales, as we do in other parts of the United Kingdom. It's not complicated, it works and it delivers results. We don't always achieve the sort of turnout that we would like to achieve, and that is a challenge, and I think it's something that we have to look to ourselves to sort out, in terms of inspiring the electorate to turn out at elections. You can't force people to use the vote that they're eligible to cast, and we've got to take and accept some responsibility for not, perhaps, inspiring them enough.

But I don't necessarily see the need for all of the proposed changes that you're putting forward in the White Paper, nor do I see this as being an area that ought to potentially be sucking up all of the Welsh Government's time in terms of its legislative priorities. There are many other things that the Welsh Government could be getting on with, but for some reason, you seem to be focusing on things that are not necessarily the priority of members of the public. 

So, we have a situation where you embarked upon your early voting pilots earlier this year; frankly, they were a disaster—they were an absolute, unmitigated disaster. You spent £1.5 million—£845 per person who voted early. That was the outcome. And the turnout in those areas that had the early voting pilots actually went down, and it went down by more than the actual turnout across Wales as a whole went down. So, it went down even further than the 3 per cent across Wales as a whole. So, that's not a success. So, you have one question, I think, resoundingly answered by the spectacular failure of those early voting pilots in that you should not be taking forward any further prospect of early voting in the future. 

You've talked, in your White Paper, about automatic voter registration. Now, to me, it's not clear why this might be necessary. Many millions of people in Wales register to vote with the current voting registration system without any issues at all. And of course there are some challenges that are thrown up by automatic voter registration. You could end up with people being registered to vote twice, for example, at two addresses, with potentially an increase in the risk of those individuals voting twice in the same election—[Interruption.] Yes, of course it could happen now, but it's more likely to happen if you're automatically registered in two places at the same time. 

You specifically refer to students; the reality is that many students only want to be registered at their home address, their permanent home address, not their term-time address. Now, it's a matter for them if they choose to register at their term-time address. That's entirely a matter for them to be able to choose, but you're taking that choice away from people if you automatically register them to vote at their term-time address. It's not clear how you're going to overcome some of those challenges, where people might want to express a preference to be registered in one place over the other, and it's not clear how, in the White Paper, you'll address the potential for people to vote twice in the same set of elections when they're not entitled to. 

In addition to that, of course, there have been pilots that have taken place, roll-outs of automatic voter registration that have taken place in other parts of the world. In California, for example, there were 1,500 ineligible voters who were added to the electoral roll automatically as a result of the introduction of automatic voter registration there, and there were 84,000 people who had duplicate registration in California alone. Now, I know that California has got a much bigger population, and I'd love to go over there to see first-hand how it all operates, but the reality is that we don't want a situation where people feel, unwittingly, perhaps, as though they might have two or three opportunities to vote because they own two or three properties in two or three different places, or because they register during a term time at one abode and are registering at another time in another abode. 

I was disappointed as well, Minister—[Inaudible.]—Welsh Government to extending the franchise to more prisoners. I think that that's very disappointing indeed, that you still hold that position as a Government. I'm pleased that the UK Government is preventing you from doing that at the moment, and I just hope that there'll be no change in the UK Government, in terms of that attitude going forward.

Darren, you've gone well over your time, I want to bring people in. 

Yes. The final point, if I may raise it, if that's okay, Deputy Presiding Officer, is that I want to know how you're going to uphold this principle of simplicity around elections when you're actually introducing more complexity into the election system, because the more that we diverge in Wales from the voting system that is used for police and crime commissioner elections and for UK general elections, then the more complexity that that is going to bring to people to have to navigate, to try to understand when they are going out to vote. So, if we've got automatic registration, for example, for some elections and not others, people might assume that they're already registered to vote in the general election but might not be, and I think that that sort of complexity is very unwelcome. And that's why I would encourage you to work more closely with the UK Government in order that we can try, if we're going to take forward any reforms, that we can try and do so consistently for all elections, to make sure that that complexity isn't there.

Thank you for those comments, and thank you, also, for welcoming the common objective of obviously wanting a well-working, efficient and robust electoral system.

I think the crux is that the world is changing: we have technology, we've learned opportunity, just as we do within this Senedd with hybrid meetings—we've learned how to use that. And this is a consultation, and it's not about forcing anybody to vote, but it is about ensuring that you can maximise the opportunity for all those people, for the diversity across our society of abilities and so on to be able to participate in voting. Because maximising voting, maximising the opportunity to vote, is about creating a very healthy democracy. For me, that has always been, actually, one of the well-being goals that really, we should all be aiming for, because a society where increasing numbers of people don't participate I think is on a very dangerous slope, and I think we see that around the world.

You talk about it sucking up time, well, of course, in 2017, we were given specific responsibilities to enable us to actually change and to reform our electoral law, and we see out of that opportunities. The consultation is about exploring those opportunities and looking to how we might drag our electoral system into the twenty-first century. After all, what we've had in the past up to now have been some pilots, which have not been about—no-one ever believed that the four pilots that we carried out were going to suddenly transform the turnout and there was going to be this massive rush to the electoral polls. It was always about the technical mechanism for how we might actually do things differently, to show that we could digitise, to show that we could actually run elections in a different, more—and to that extent, they were very successful. If we really wanted to worry about sucking up time, it might be helpful if you called on the UK Government to dismiss the retained EU law, which is going to suck up enormous amounts of time in a totally unnecessary way. I leave that to one side.

I see it as a real attraction to use the powers that we have to look at how technology can make voting more attractive, make it easier, and also maintain robustness and simplicity. I have to say that when I listened to some of your comments, you reminded me of sort of a Captain Ludd—you know, the person who went around opposing, Darren the Luddite [Laughter.] And I think that that's a bit of the difficulty with the approach here. You should really follow the example of David Cameron, and David Cameron said,

'The changes we're making...are modernisation with a purpose. That purpose is to make sure we can meet the big challenges of our age'.

And in many ways, if you take our democratic health really seriously, then facing up to those challenges and looking at how technology can actually make our electoral system more attractive I think is well worth exploring, and if there are things that the pilots show that can work, then we ought to do that.

Automatic registration: well, it seems to me that having as many people as possible who can vote and are entitled to vote on the electoral register is an absolute objective that we should actually have. And in terms of the issue of being registered twice, well, at the moment, I don't think it is an offence to be registered twice or even registered three times. What is an offence is to vote in more than one place. I remember as a student, I was always registered in two places: my hometown and wherever I was depending upon when the election would actually take place.

On the prisoner franchise, we certainly have an ambition that, at some stage in the future, for a certain category of prisoners, part of the rehabilitation of prisoners and part of the engagement of people reintroducing into the democratic process is something that has an attraction to it. It won't be happening this time around; it is something that is certainly in the longer term, mainly because in order to achieve it, it requires a positive engagement with aspects of the referred justice system that we don't have at this moment.

In terms of simplicity, can I just say that the comment you made about not diverging, I don't believe that we are diverging? What we are doing is modernising. What the UK Government is doing is actually diverging—diverging from basic principles by creating hurdles that will make it more difficult for people to register for voting and also to be able to vote. But, as I said, this is a consultation, and I look forward to the inclusion of your and, no doubt, your party's input into that consultation process. Those views, obviously, will be considered, as will all views.

Thank you very much, Counsel General, and we as Plaid Cymru welcome any attempt to make it easier for people to vote. We look forward to seeing the details as the consultation proceeds.

Why aren't we willing to change the voting system? Everything else in the world changes. But Mr Luddite over here wants us to remain in the age of steam when it comes to voting, rather than go into the digital age. But it's hardly surprising, though, Cwnsler Cyffredinol, to hear Darren Millar opposing reform. Of course, his party's opposed every reform since the great Reform Act 1832, haven't they? So, at least he's true to form. His attack on pilots—. Well, pilots are just those, aren't they? They are tests. They are things to learn from, and I would support any pilot with the aim of trying to encourage more people to vote. He talks about confusion. His party changed the voting system, with the Liberal Democrats, with the police and crime commissioner Act, to first past the post. There was no talk about confusion there. They were the ones that wanted to introduce voter ID. There was no talk about chaos happening at that point.

I'm sure, Cwnsler Cyffredinol, you stayed up late last night to listen to my friend and colleague Sioned Williams on Sharp End. She said, as with the extension of the voting rights to 16 and 17-year-olds, people will not be empowered to vote unless they are inspired to vote, and that's so important. I agreed with Darren on that point. It's up to all of us to inspire, but political education is key. Sioned's right. Political education—what role does political education have in all of this?

Like many people, we're knocking doors during election time. You'll have people telling us, 'Oh, well, we only moved in a few months ago, and we haven't registered.' This will solve that issue. What it won't solve is some wards—. And I can take you to some wards in Cardiff, where you go street after street, passing house after house of people not registered. This isn't going to answer that problem, but what we will see in many wards in Cardiff, and I'm sure in Pontypridd, where the voting turnout at the moment is in the early 20s, is the voting turnout will just plummet even further, but at least it will be a true reflection of the number of people voting.

As you said, Cwnsler Cyffredinol, automatic registration is not a new thing. I, in my halls of residence, was automatically registered to vote in England, in their local elections, and I can tell you that's the only election I've never voted for Plaid Cymru. [Laughter.] I won't tell you who I voted for, but that party's never been represented here, and that party supports Welsh independence, so I'll allow you to guess. But it's important that people know that they're registered. How will you tell people that they have been registered? How will the advertisement be paid for? Will it be up to local authorities, yet again, to foot the bill?

When and where will these pilots take place, because you can only do it for local elections and Welsh elections? Well, they are far away, so when will they take place and how quickly will the evaluation be done afterwards?

I am disappointed—. And I will remind Darren Millar of the words of Jesus Christ in the gospel according to Matthew: 'When I was a prisoner, you remembered me, you came to me.' Well, I want to remember the prisoners today. The fact that Darren Millar does not want to include prisoners—. Everybody who lives in this country should be part of civic society, and you should listen, you should listen to the words of your saviour, Jesus Christ, in the New Testament, Darren Millar. Now, I do urge the Welsh Government to put this back on the agenda—something my party and I feel very strongly about.

A couple of technical things to end: what is this electoral management board you mention? Is it the same as the election co-ordination board that the Electoral Commission has been asking about? I noted, right at the end of your statement, that you mentioned merging the independent remuneration panel and the Local Democracy and Boundary Commission for Wales. Now, you'll know that the independent remuneration panel deals with levels of payment for elected members of councils, but also the national parks authorities and fire and rescue authorities. What has that got to do with the boundary commission, and how will that impact any boundary reviews when it comes to this place? Diolch yn fawr. And within five minutes. [Laughter.]

Can I thank you for your comments? I agreed with most of the comments, and I certainly agree with the comments that you made with regard to the voter ID. Only I would probably disagree with you there, because there is already emanating a lot of chaos on how on earth that would work and what the challenges are in terms of explaining to people what is required and how that would actually work, and I wonder whether that will actually happen. 

It happens in Northern Ireland—[Inaudible.]

I think that Northern Ireland is a slightly different situation, in terms of its own process. I think, in terms of the common area that is among all parties, that we all agree that there is a need for politicians to inspire, and that is an obligation. I think, in order to inspire, we have to also have the opportunity to actually engage as well, and I think it is something that needs to be looked at with the education system and so on. Of course, there is variability, and obviously there are opportunities through the new curriculum in terms of increasing, I think, civic education, which I think is absolutely fundamental, but also the ability to engage fairly with young voters—with schools and so on—in a fair and non-partisan way about the way in which the electoral system operates, but also in terms of the sorts of issues that arise.

As a personal item, I have always felt really disappointed that so many schools do not educate people about trade unions, about co-operativism and things like that—things like that have been very important in our history—but that's another matter. Clearly, there is going to be an issue in terms of any changes and how they are communicated and the engagement process on that, and that is something that will be considered within the consultation, but obviously something that is extremely important.

In terms of the pilot, I think that the main point is going to be this: if we are going to set up a nationwide database in terms of automatic registration—basically, the digitisation of the electoral system—we can't really do that, because we don't have the power to do it. We need the legislation in place; we can then have the pilot. We will have the pilot after the legislation, which is why the timetable is really important. We'll have that pilot in order to assess the different sources from which information can be taken, because we have to ensure that the system that we set up and the databases that we use and the access to the information and how it is then maintained (1) respect privacy, but also are robust and maintain confidence in the integrity of the electoral system.

We already have, of course, many, many databases. The NHS has an enormous database already. What it does mean, of course—. One of the things is that the electoral register, per se—or that database—would become a closed list. So, it wouldn't be out for sale, as it is at the moment in some ways. And I think that that would probably be a very good thing. It would be there for the appropriate authorities to access when required. 

In terms of the electoral managing and co-ordination board, well, of course, that is something that was set up on a completely voluntary basis amongst the electoral registration officers. We are one of the few places that doesn't actually have a statutory national electoral management board. So, what the legislation is proposing is that we do actually create that—we create, actually, a proper nationwide structure for the actual management and co-ordination of elections around Wales, with all the benefits that would exist in terms of maximising use of technology, systems, consistency, robustness and so on.

In terms of the remuneration board, I think that is really just a matter where there's an opportunity to actually incorporate something within another body that is basically one of efficiency and effectiveness within the legislation. So, there's a proposal there as well. I hope I've answered all the points.

I very much welcome the Minister's statement. I welcome measures to make it easier for disabled voters, both those with physical and sensory disabilities, to be able to get to a polling station. Sometimes, getting into the polling station itself can be very difficult for people who do have those disabilities. And what do people do? They don't bother, because it's too much trouble.

I welcome automatic voter registration. Many of my constituents who had actually turned up to vote for me found out that they weren't registered, which was hugely disappointing to me, though not necessarily to anybody else. But, seriously, that is a problem: people thinking that they are registered and finding out when they go there that they're not. Those tend to be disproportionately younger people; they tend to be disproportionately people from poorer areas.

The one big change that has worked really well, the postal votes on demand, that has really been a huge success. But there are two problems: the number of people who, on their postal vote, get it rejected because they fill in the date they send it in, not their date of birth; and the people whose signature doesn’t match the signature they sent in. Often these people are suffering degenerative conditions, things like multiple sclerosis or things like Parkinson’s, and their signature has changed over time. So, my request is: would it be possible to return these votes to allow people to remedy these errors? Because all you’re doing is taking the outer envelope; you’re not touching the vote whatsoever.

The second one is: I’m afraid it’s not the difficulty in voting that stops people voting—it’s a lack of desire to vote, and that’s a challenge for us on all these benches here, and members of parties who aren’t represented here, to make people think they want to vote for us.

Thank you. I think the points you made early on about inclusiveness, really, about those with disabilities, whether they be sensory abilities and so on, are actually really important. Digitisation and so on create many opportunities for change and for inclusiveness within those. Those are the ones we want to explore, and there are many examples in countries around the world that I know have been looked at previously, but I think digitisation again creates opportunities there.

I should say one thing, of course, which is that one thing we refer to in the paper—not looking at it for the next set of elections, but in the future—is of course online voting. We think there are issues with regard to technology, security and so on at this stage, but of course digitisation opens the door for that, and I think that’s a really different thing. Many of us have experience of it in many ways already, so it is about the utilisation of the technology, provided it can be done safely, robustly and, I think, absolutely simply.

I think the point you raised in terms of postal votes is absolutely right. Of course, some changes were made after the last elections with regard to the format of the postal vote papers, and I have to confess you’re absolutely right about the confusion. I made a mistake and had to go and seek another paper in order to do that, for exactly the same reason—you sign in the wrong place or whatever. And those are easy mistakes to make. So, one of the things in this area that’s in the paper for consultation is of course that issue of tracking. And that is ensuring that those who want to vote and who use postal votes—if there are reasons why, there are technical errors like that and so on, there are opportunities for them to be corrected and so on. I don’t think that is beyond our abilities at all.

I just thank you for the other comments.

Finally, Jane Dodds.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Good afternoon, Counsel General. I’ve got one minute to talk about democracy, when I am the only representative of the Liberal Democrats. But I just want to put on record how I support the principle of these reforms, because democracy in the UK is on life support, trust in politicians is at an all-time low, turnout in elections remains low, participation in democracy continues to fall, and we have a lot to do—unlike the Conservatives in Westminster, who are hell-bent on trashing our democracy and robbing us of our basic democratic freedoms.

Frankly, the attempts to dehumanise prisoners even further I think is unforgiveable. With the greatest of respect, Darren Millar, it is unforgiveable that you want to deny them the right to talk and to vote on things that are so important to them—as important to them as they are to us. So, we must remove barriers and make it simpler for people to vote, and I’m thankful for the advances that have been made in the statement today.

Here are some ideas to really push that Welsh vote out even further. I would like to see a shift where all councils have to elect councillors through STV. I want to see participatory budgeting, I’d like to see more innovation around citizens’ assemblies, and I want to see us lead the way on data and technology, which you have just referred to. There’s so much to welcome here, and I do hope that we can move it forward further here in Wales. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

Can I thank you for those comments? I think this is a really exciting consultation, because it has shown that within Wales we can do something different, we can do it better and we can use the powers we have. I think the approach that we’ve had, and something that has been considered over a number of years since 2017, the way we can modernise and drag our voting system into the twenty-first century—. And let's face it, our voting system, essentially, has not changed very much in 100 years. It's still paper votes on lists, with pens and papers and rulers, where you draw lines through and so on, and clearly it's not beyond our wit to actually produce something a lot better, and I look forward to your ideas there. 

Can I just say something on your ideas and the comments you made in terms of local councils and STV? Well, of course, as a result of legislation passed in this place, local councils have the opportunity to choose to introduce STV in their voting systems if they choose to do so. They have to do it, I think, within the first two years, but that is a choice locally that they actually have. Diolch.

I thank the Counsel General.