Section 3 - Duty to register local government electors
33.Subsection (1) omits section 18 of the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021, which contains provision regarding registration of local government electors without application that has not been brought into force.
34.Subsection (2) inserts a new section (9ZA) into the Representation of the People Act 1983 (hereafter referred to as “the 1983 Act”). Section 9ZA requires each electoral registration officer in Wales to add eligible electors to the local government register in Wales where the electoral registration officer is satisfied that the person is entitled to be registered. A local government register in Wales is used for elections of councillors to counties, county boroughs and communities in Wales along with elections for membership of Senedd Cymru. Electoral registration officers will need to verify the person’s identity and circumstances relating to eligibility in order to be satisfied; and electoral registration officers will need notify persons they intend to register before they do so. There will be no need for the elector to make an application through the existing system if the electoral registration officer has the duty to register them.
35.Section 9ZA(3) requires electoral registration officers to notify persons they are satisfied are eligible for registration before they are registered. The notice must be in writing informing the person of—
the electoral registration officer’s duty to register the person after the end of the notice period;
the exceptions to the electoral registration officer’s duty to register the person;
the elector’s right to request exclusion from the edited register of local government electors (if provision is made for an edited register in regulations under section 53 of the 1983 Act);
the elector’s right to apply for anonymous registration; and
the types of election the person will and will not be entitled to vote in as a result of being registered without an application (the person would be entitled vote in Senedd Cymru elections and elections for councillors in counties, county boroughs and communities in Wales, but it would not entitle them to vote in an election for membership of the House of Commons in the UK Parliament – an application for registration would be needed for that).
36.The notice period is 60 days (subsection (4) of section 9ZA) and this provides time for a person who receives a notice to respond to it with any concerns or objections before the electoral registration officer’s duty to register takes effect at the end of the period.
37.Subsection (5) of section 9ZA requires an electoral registration officer to register the person at the end of the 60-day notice period unless—
the person has notified the electoral registration officer that they do not wish to be registered (paragraph (a));
the electoral registration officer is no longer satisfied that the person is entitled to be registered (paragraph (b)); or
the person wishes to make an application for anonymous registration or has made one (paragraph (c)).
38.Where the person objects to their registration without application, the electoral registration officer is required to stop the automatic registration process and instead follow the process in section 9E of the 1983 Act, which requires an electoral registration officer to invite a person to apply for registration if, in relation to an unregistered person whose name and address the electoral registration officer knows, the electoral registration officer has reason to believe that the person is entitled to be registered. Section 9ZA(6) provides the Welsh Ministers with a power to make provision in regulations about the requirements of notices to a person who the electoral registration officer is considering registering under the section, including provision about the form of the notice and how and to whom it may or must be provided.
39.Subsections (8) and (9) require the regulations under subsection (6) to be made by statutory instrument and subject to the negative resolution procedure in the Senedd.
