Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone is demanding answers from the Government after she uncovered shocking figures showing that the number of constituencies for which key official election documents have been lost doubled at the 2005 general election.

The figures, in response to a written Parliamentary question to the Department for Constitutional Affairs, show that all or part of the marked register for the 2005 general election was lost for 98 constituencies, up from 45 in 2001.

After each general election, local returning officers are required to send in the complete marked register – which shows who has voted and is therefore a crucial safeguard against electoral fraud – to the DCA for safe-keeping. However, not only have large numbers of these documents been lost, but also the DCA has failed to investigate how the losses have occurred or who is responsible for them.

Lynne Featherstone MP said:

“I am appalled that the Government does not appear to give a damn about the fact that Woking’s marked register has gone missing and that 98 others were not complete. Even when I first raised the issue with the Government, their answer to my first written question was incomplete and half-hearted at best.

“We simply don’t know whether these documents are being lost locally, in transit or by the DCA’s contractors responsible for the central storage.Given in particular the recent high-profile concerns over electoral fraud, it is staggering that so many documents are being lost – and so little being done about it.

“The Government’s plans to have these documents stored locally in future (under the Electoral Administration Bill) will make matters even worse if the losses are happening at local level – because they we wouldn’t even have any national figures for the scale of the problem.”