• NIGEL Gansell perceives it to be a “complete waste of time and paper” for the council’s Electoral Services to send annual voter registration forms to each residential property in Islington, (Poll checks waste cash, August 3). It is currently a legal requirement to do this.

Islington has one of the most transient populations in the UK. This statutory process does help us to ensure we identify and register approximately 30,000 new residents each year.

That being said, I agree with Mr Gansell that we should be able to make better use of other data we hold locally within the council or even national datasets so that we can exclude some people from the process, where we are satisfied that they are still resident.

It looks like the government too is moving in this direction. For the start of the 2020 voter registration canvass we hope to be able to do this and save the council money.

In the meantime we are stuck with the existing system, but I would urge all residents to respond to the form and us help us save money this year too so we don’t have to send reminder forms out.

ANDREW SMITH
Head of registration and electoral services,
Islington Council