A letter
Having been mostly incommunicado today I might not manage the usual summary of the day's election excitements, so I'll have a detailed look at a letter which has fallen into my hands. It was addressed to an elderly person, and I've redacted names, constituency names and details of the person's address in a pleasing
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| Page 1 - click to read |
It might be that every one of us will receive a letter like this, or it might be that different communications will be directed to different groups of voters. Note, for example, the mention of a postal vote on page 2.
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| Page 2 - click to read |
For a moment I thought it was Commons notepaper - it's the same colour - but it's lighter weight and doesn't have the letterhead. The envelope shows it to be handled by UKMail (and delivered by Royal Mail). [update]
The letter is "promoted by Alan Mabbutt on behalf of the Conservative Party" and printed in London, so I'll assume it isn't a constituency-related communication from the local candidate. Names, addresses and whether a person has a postal vote is information from the electoral roll, which a few quick searches confirm is held by the electoral registration office of the appropriate local council.
I know there's a national system for registering online (remind everybody to use it if they might not be registered) and what's known as the open roll is available for general viewing. A large number of people withhold their details from the open roll, and the recipient of this letter is one of them.
Gov.uk tells individuals that they can access the open roll by enquiring at the local council but another quick search yields a wide range of services allowing you to track people down using this information. The names and addresses might be combined with other databases to provide other information - phone number, property price... - but not, surely, whether you have a postal vote.
The full version of the roll, with all the names and presumably postal vote requests, is available to local political parties and candidates to support their work during an election. In this case it seems that the national Conservative party has access to the full roll. I assume that's OK.......
And of course it will all be paid for by the national party account. Won't it?
It's nice to be noticed
(and I know it's not the real one)Repeat until in power https://t.co/xX92Shktrr— Sir Lynton Crosby (@LyntonSpins) May 11, 2017
