How Calderdale's electoral register has been kept up to date during the pandemic

Ways of doing this have had to be different because of the health emergency, but throughout the year the process of adding people to the roll and the necessary removals of people from it has taken place, members of Calderdale Council’s Governance and Business Committee heard.

Calderdale Electoral Services Manager Michelle Brown said changes gave electoral officers had used simple but effective routes this year.

Even in the pandemic that meant visiting around 5,500 properties which had not responded to correspondence, undertaken using guidance for doing so, and leaving leaflets where people did not want to come to the door.

“Where we find any people we are sending invitations to register and where we know they have left we are putting plans in place to remove them – everyone is being looked at,” she said.

Ms Brown said the team was looking at around 400 to 500 records each week.

Coun Megan Swift (Lab, Town) asked if the team had had to knock on doors and Ms Brown this had been done using 16 canvassers equipped with tablets as a solution, limiting the need for paper – if people were not comfortable they were left a contact card.

Full risk assessments were undertaken before carrying out the task.

The Calderdale electorate at publication of the latest register on December 1, 2020, was 151,508, comparable to the previous three years.

“Our numbers are pretty stable – our team keeps finding electors, and removing them,” said Ms Brown.

On a related issue, Coun Steven Leigh (Con, Ryburn) asked whether the elections would be able to be held because of the pandemic.

The council’s Head of Democratic and Partnership Services, Ian Hughes, said preparations were being made to provide as safe an election as possible on May 6, in terms of both polling and the count, in a year in which parish elections and those for the first West Yorkshire Mayor were also to take place.

The Government has yet to make a decision on whether people can go to the polls safely during the ongoing pandemic.