Part time prisoners can vote
Individuals held on intermittent custody orders will be able to vote in the upcoming general election.
Sentenced prisoners are banned from voting under the Representation of the People Act 1983, but the principle dates back to the Forfeiture Act of 1870.
The Home Office’s pilot scheme for intermittent custody sees people imprisoned for either just weekdays or the weekend so their sentence does not completely disrupt their normal lives.
About 35 are currently in jail only on Saturday and Sundays and, as they will not actually be in custody on May 5, they will be able to vote.
And the five who are detained in the week are released by 17:00 BST every day, which gives them ample time to vote before polling stations close at 22:00.
“Electoral law specifies that a convicted person whilst detained is not able to vote,” a spokesman for the Department of Constitutional Affairs told the Press Association.
“It has long been recognised that any offender is not disqualified from voting during periods when he is lawfully out on licence – for example, released early on parole.”
The news comes as Government lawyers are in Europe to contest a European Court of Human Rights ruling that the ban on sentenced prisoners voting violated Article Three of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Although the appeal is being heard today, the final decision will not be taken until later in the year. The Government argues that those who have committed a serious enough crime to be imprisoned should lose their right to have a say in how society is governed.
A coalition of activists, let by the Prison Reform Trust, has been campaigning for the bar to be removed arguing that it does nothing to help prisoners rehabilitate into society.
The Liberal Democrats are also in favour of the ban being lifted.
Responding to the news that intermittent custody prisoners may be able to vote, Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said it was a result of Labour’s failure to keep prisoners in jail.
Mr Davis said: “When the Liberal Democrats argued prisoners should be given the right to vote, Labour’s election Chief, Alan Milburn, said ‘it just adds insult to injury for the victims of crime.’ This was all talk.
“Part time prisoners are a direct consequence of Labour’s policy of keeping criminals out of jail rather than building more prison places. Prisoners voting is yet another outrageous consequence of their failure.
“The Conservatives would not give prisoners the vote. We would build an extra 20,000 prison places so that offenders do not serve their punishment part-time.”
