Professor Michael Marsh:

I would if I could. There would be more work for academics.

On a cautionary note, we should not see an electoral commission as a panacea for people's lack of involvement in politics. I would suggest the reason people are not involved in politics is that they do not think it matters. They only think it matters if the candidate they vote for makes a difference. Otherwise, many will ask themselves why they should bother. It may be good that it does not make a difference. If there is a choice between two politicians, both of whom are going to do sensible things, why bother choosing? If, from the voter's point of view, one politician is going to be a disaster and the other is going to be sensible, that is the time to vote.

Turnout is affected more by whether people think it is worth it. On the whole, they think it is worth it when politicians are more active. We see that turnout is highest in those areas where politicians probably do the most to get involved with the community. We see it in referendums, when the pattern of voting is entirely different from the pattern for elections. It is down to the activities of politicians and they, not an electoral commission, can get people out to vote. An electoral commission can do all sorts of good work to facilitate voting.

The two countries with electoral commissions which I mentioned in my submission have electronic voting. Curiously enough, both Scotland and New Zealand use exactly the same electoral system as us. Perhaps under the advice of their electoral commissions, they had the good sense to give people ballot papers to fill in by hand. They then scanned the ballot papers and counted them electronically. They do not need bank tellers. Well, perhaps they do - that is how bank tellers deal with our money.