Electronic and remote voting

With many legislatures now returning to a relative normality, considerations are being given as to whether electronic and remote voting, scaled up during the pandemic, should remain as a permanent feature. David Whelan looks at whether the Northern Ireland Assembly is behind the curve in its use of digital technology.

The pandemic forced legislatures across the world to adapt new ways of working to allow for the continuation of parliamentary business, including the introduction of electronic voting and remote voting. In Northern Ireland however, in response to the pandemic, the Assembly introduced temporary provisions in Standing Orders to allow proxy voting until January 2021.

Unlike neighbouring legislatures, the Northern Ireland Assembly did not have an electronic voting system in place to allow for expansion of the system to facilitate digital remote voting.

Standing Orders 112 and 115 allow for proxy voting in the chamber and committees respectively (along with other measures for committees including voting by video link or telephone) and the Procedures Committee is considering instances in which proxy voting could be retained on a more permanent basis and how this might be reflected in Standing Orders.

Northern Ireland appears to be behind the curve when considering actions taken by neighbouring legislatures.

A research paper for the Committee on Procedures by the Northern Ireland Assembly’s research and information service recently took stock of the use of electronic voting in other legislatures and the effect of Covid-19 on business-asusual.

In Scotland, an electronic system of voting in Parliament has been in place since the Parliament opened in 2004. In 2011, the system had to be replaced at a cost of £270,000 due to the supplier no longer being able to maintain the system. At the outset of the pandemic, the Parliament legislated for a change that allowed other voting systems to be used in the Chamber. The remote voting system was first used in the week commencing 11 August 2020 and Scotland’s Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee has now recommended a permanent change.

The Welsh Parliament is also an electronic debating chamber, with members’ individual computers having access to information relevant to plenary proceeding and dull access to the rest of their ICT system. In July 2020, secure

app was developed to allow members to continue to vote electronically while not in the chamber.

In contrast, there was no provision for electronic voting in the House of Commons chamber until the Covid-19 pandemic. Alterations to allow for the continuation of parliamentary business, including remote voting (the first remote voting division was held in May 2020) were stressed to be temporary. The voting system used the existing MemberHub, which MPs use for tabling parliamentary questions or early day motions.

On 20 May 2020, the order on remote voting lapsed and was not renewed. The HoC’s Procedures committee stated that significant additional resource and expenditure would be required if the House were required to develop a system to provide sufficient authentication assurance on a permanent basis.

Unlike the House of Commons, the Lords has kept its electronic voting system as an interim measure until the feasibility of a pass reader system can be explored. PeerHub, a new online hub was developed, and remote voting was introduced on 15 June 2020. However, members are only eligible to participate in a vote if they are doing so from a place of work on the Parliamentary Estate.

Electronic voting was introduced by Dáil Eireann in 2002. Most division votes are taken electronically but some exemptions exist, including motions of no confidence in the Government. Remote electronic voting was not available during the pandemic as the Irish Constitution refers to “members present and voting”. In response to Covid-19, Dáil Éireann moved to the Dublin Convention Centre to accommodate social distancing and on those occasions when it sat in Leinster House, proportionate representation from each political party was used.

However, a Private Member’s Bill, currently progressing through the Dáil, would amend the Constitution to allow remote voting.

Consideration

The report to the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Procedures Committee summarised: “The research has identified that the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Parliament and Dáil Éireann have permanent, in-house electronic voting, with members voting at assigned seats. The experience of these legislatures shows that this method of voting is not without controversy and technical issues, but generally it has appeared to work well and is accepted by members.

“The need for a reduction in the number of members present in chambers necessitated a rethink on voting procedures, with the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Parliament moving to remote electronic voting. The House of Commons and House of Lords, neither of which had a history of electronic voting, utilised apps to ensure that members could vote remotely.”

Issues identified for consideration, following a review of practices in other legislatures, for a Northern Ireland context include the cost of installing and maintaining an electronic voting system, including necessary changes to the current Assembly chamber; the creation of procedural safeguards in the case of technology failure; and whether any items would be excluded from electronic voting.

Additional consideration would also have to be given to safeguarding requirements against corruption or abuse and whether an electronic system would enable remote voting.

A spokesperson for the Northern Ireland Assembly said: “The Speaker of the Assembly has raised with both the Committee on Procedures and the Business Committee that the introduction of electronic voting has the potential to improve the management of business in the Assembly Chamber and merits detailed consideration… The Committee on Procedures and the Assembly Commission are continuing to liaise to explore issues in relation to their respective responsibilities if electronic voting was to be introduced.”

Citizenship recommendations response overdue

The UK Government has failed to respond to a report by MPs which called for better and easier processes for people on the island of Ireland to both renounce and attain British citizenship.

The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee published its report on Citizenship and Passport Processes in Northern Ireland in July 2021 and response to the report by the UK Government was five months overdue.

The UK Government has undertaken, where possible, to reply to reports by House of Commons select committees within two months of publication, however, the Government missed the 7 September target and had still not responded at the end of January 2022.

The report followed a short inquiry in 2021 which looked at the costs and process required for Irish citizens to naturalise as British; and the rights relating to identity and citizenship under Article 1(vi) of the Good Friday Agreement.

It recommended that the Government amend its citizenship renunciation process for people in Northern Ireland, recognising that some people wish to “align their choice of an Irish-only identity with their citizenship”. The MPs called on the Government to simplify the process for the renunciation of British citizenship for people who wish to assert their Irishonly identity, recognising that people born in Northern Ireland wanting to do so, first have to declare their British citizenship, before they can renounce it.

The Good Friday Agreement enshrines the right of the people of Northern Ireland to identify and be accepted as Irish or British or both. However, discrepancies in how the Home Office applies this to policy have been questioned including a high-profile case taken by Emma DeSouza, where she challenged the Government’s position that she was a British citizen through automatic conferral as she always identified as Irish-only and held a passport accordingly.

The NIAC report also called for the removal of an “unfair” element of the UK naturalisation policy for Irish citizens, which requires the payment of a fee of £1,330 to become a British citizen. Currently, naturalisation to become a British citizen is a lengthy process which costs £1,330 and also requires applicants to take a ‘Life in the UK’ test and attend a mandatory citizenship test. The issue was raised by former speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly William Hay, who having been born in the Republic of Ireland spent the majority of his life in Northern Ireland and applied for British citizenship.

The report also recommends the Government drop the requirement for Irish citizens to sit the test, and to make attendance at the ceremony optional.

Calling for a “more considered and bespoke” understanding of the unique relationship between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland needed in the Home Office, the report concludes that the Home Office’s “onesize-fits-all approach” fails to recognise the historic ties and issues between the two countries but added that the issue is one that must be addressed jointly with the Irish Government.

TRADE UNION DESK

Where’s the EU substitute funding?

It used to be said that the cost of freedom is eternal vigilance. In Brexit Britain, the benefit of freedom seems to be freedom from local vigilance, as much as from EU bean counters, writes the ICTU’s John O’Farrell.

Six years ago, this column asked Theresa Villiers MP, the last-but-four Secretary of States this: ‘Could she promise that the Great Britain taxpayer will compensate Northern Ireland for all the cash we will lose from the Brexit she championed?’ That was: CAP for the farmers (€714 million, from 2014-2020); ESF for skills (€205 million); ERDF for infrastructure (€308 million), Interreg for links to Scotland and other EU regions (€€283 million) and Peace IV (€270 million) for repairing the human and social damage of the Troubles.

In April 2022, we may get our answer. The UK Government is scheduled to deliver details of the UK's Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF). However, as the Northern Ireland Finance Minister Conor Murphy MLA recently observed: “Neither Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland had been given any say in its design, policy direction or delivery.”

In the old days of the Brussels yoke, the EU doled out structural funds using a formula that accounts for per capita GDP relative to the EU average, as well as local levels of employment, education, and population density. Additionally, the devolved administrations exercised a high degree of control over the funds, within broad parameters set by the Partnership Agreement and the EU Common Provisions Regulation, which required minimum amounts of spend on certain specific areas, such as innovation. This allowed the devolved administrations to align ERDF and ESF expenditure from the EU with other devolved priorities and spending.

To declare an interest, I represented trade unions on a board of social partners overseeing ESF and ERDF funding. We met quarterly (and more often in specialised sub-groups) and were given access to all the supporting documentation we could manage. We could ask direct questions of EU and Northern Ireland officials and expect answers. We did so and got answers.

It used to be said that the cost of freedom is eternal vigilance. In Brexit Britain, the benefit of freedom seems to be freedom from local vigilance, as much as from EU bean counters. The UKSPF seems to be plotted from Whitehall, with little input from Executive ministers, let alone local representatives of farmers, business, community sector, district councils, or unions.

It is also a fact that there will be less money to follow. Invest NI has had a few difficulties lately, and the source of some are the ‘informal indications’ that the yearly £100 million it got from EU Structural Funds will be whittled down to £11 million from the UKSPF. One would laugh except for the central role assigned to Invest NI for attracting investment and developing our ‘prosperity’.

Many of the broader problems with the UKSPF are outlined in an excellent report from the Institute for Government, who add one concern unspoken by the Executive: “…the need to allocate funding in a way that attracts support and has a sense of legitimacy across the community divide. Care should be taken, for instance, over the branding of UKSPF projects in Northern Ireland…”