A cross-party Committee (to be be precise, The Joint Committee on the Draft Voting Eligibility (Prisoners) Bill), has just published its report on prisoner voting. It recommends that:
‘the Government introduce a Bill at the start of the 2014–15 session, which should provide that all prisoners serving sentences of 12 months or less should be entitled to vote in all UK parliamentary, local and European elections; and moreover that prisoners should be entitled to apply, up to 6 months before their scheduled release date, to be registered to vote in the constituency into which they are due to be released.’
Will the government do this? Given that David Cameron claims to be ‘physically sick’ at the thought of prisoner voting and many MPs don’t see it as a vote winner, I suspect that many MPs will continue to resist this…
Toby S. James 