Professor Michael Marsh:

I am not an expert in how people register in most countries of the world as I have not done direct research on it. What I know about it is something I have come across in passing or, as I said earlier, I asked a professor in Amsterdam how the Dutch system worked. I do know about some countries such as the US which is one of the worst systems. The problem in many parts of the US is that many people do not get on the electoral register. In some states, that suits the state as it does not want poor and uneducated people on the register because they might vote for the wrong people. It is the same reason we are not necessarily keen on 16-year-olds getting the vote because they might vote for the wrong people.

That is the position, although certain things have been tried in the United States. For example, in some states people registering for a driver's licence, and everyone seems to have a driver's licence in the US, registers to vote at the same time. This is known as "motor-voter" registration.

Regardless of which system we adopt, we do not want one that places the responsibility for registering on the individual because the responsibility for ensuring people are registered lies with the State. The State considers it important that people have a right to vote and should make sure they have that right, regardless of whether they want it.

We then move to the issue of turnout. At the moment, we speak a great deal about turnout, yet we do not have a clue about the level of turnout. It may be 5% or 10% more than the figures indicate. The only thing we can be certain about is that more people vote than the statistics would indicate because the electoral register is deficient. The strong probability is that it is deficient because it features more names than it should.

The age at which people should be able to vote is probably outside the scope of this discussion. One of the things I expect an electoral commission to do is generate some ideas and research on precisely this type of issue. In Australia, which uses exactly the same electoral system as we do in certain circumstances, as does New Zealand - contrary to what we may believe, the system we use is not unique - the electoral commission produces regular reports about how to improve the operation of the system. Extensive discussion takes place about the system in a way that it has not been discussed here since the foundation of the State. This is what an electoral commission can do for us.