Policy paper

Using data matching to confirm electors in Great Britain

This report evaluates 'confirmation’ (the process of using data matching to confirm electors on the electoral register) in Great Britain.

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

Documents

Details

The results in this report build on the findings from the interim ‘confirmation’ evaluation on England and Wales published in October 2014.

Confirmation matches the names and addresses of records on all Electoral Registration Officers’ (EROs) current electoral registers against data held by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

Confirmation was an important part of the move to Individual Electoral Registration (IER), changing how people register to vote. The process allowed EROs to transfer existing electors who were successfully matched onto the first IER register: this simplified the transition for most people.

Published 26 November 2014