Electoral Administration Act 2006

The Electoral Administration Act 2006 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, passed on 11 July 2006.

Among its main provisions, the Act:

• Provides a legislative framework for setting up a "Coordinated Online Record of Electors", known as "CORE", to co-ordinate electoral registration information across regions.
• Creates new criminal offences for supplying false electoral registration details or for failure to supply such details.
• Allows people to register anonymously on electoral registers if a 'safety test' is passed.
• Requires local authorities to review all polling stations, and to provide a report on the reviews to the Electoral Commission.
• Provides for the making of signature and date of birth checks on postal vote applications.
• Revises the law on "undue influence".
• Allows observers to monitor elections (with the exception of Scottish local government elections, which are the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament).
• Reduces the age of candidacy for public elections from 21 to 18.
• Allows for alterations to ballot paper designs, including the introduction of barcodes and pilot schemes for the introduction of photographs on ballot papers.
• Allows citizens of the Republic of Ireland and certain Commonwealth residents the right to stand in elections.
• Changes rules on how elections are run in the event of the death of a candidate, following the events in South Staffordshire at the 2005 general election.
• Provides for the entitlement of children to accompany parents and carers into polling stations.
• Bars candidates from using in their name or description expressions such as "Don't vote for them" or "None of the above".
• Bars candidates from standing in more than one constituency at the same election.
• Allows political parties up to 12 separate descriptions to be used on ballot papers, and allows joint candidature.
• Requires local authorities to promote and encourage electoral registration and voting.
• Amongst other provisions affecting members of the armed forces and other persons with a "service qualification", allows the Secretary of State to extend the period of validity (previously one year) of a "service declaration" by which qualified persons may have their names placed on the electoral register as "service voters"; the Act also imposes new duties upon the Ministry of Defence.
• Removes the requirement for an observer to witness the signing of the security statement of a postal vote.
• Requires political parties to declare large loans. This provision was introduced as an amendment, surviving much parliamentary ping-pong, following the "Cash for Peerages" scandal.

Some of its provisions came into effect upon it receiving assent, with other provisions commencing on other dates.