§ Mr. Don FosterTo ask the Deputy Prime Minister who the intended recipients are of the funding for e-voting announced in the 2002 Spending Review. [71231]
§ Mr. LeslieUnder the 2002 Spending Review, there is provision of £30 million: £10 million for each of the three years 2003–04, 2004–05 and 2005–06, for local e-voting, enabling the Government to contribute this sum to the costs of those local authorities and their IT partners participating in e-voting pilot schemes over the next three years.
§ Mr. Don FosterTo ask the Deputy Prime Minister what the total Government expenditure on the trials into new methods of voting undertaken at the May elections was, broken down into(a) e-voting, (b) postal ballots and (c) other. [71226]
§ Mr. LeslieThe Government made £4.135 million available to contribute to the costs of the 16 local authorities running electronic voting and counting schemes in the May 2002 electoral modernisation pilot programme. The costs of piloting all-postal or other voting techniques were borne by the 14 local authorities concerned.
§ Mr. Don FosterTo ask the Deputy Prime Minister what study has been made of the trials of e-voting at the May elections. [71229]
§ Mr. LeslieThe Electoral Commission is evaluating the local authorities that ran e-voting pilot schemes in the May 2002 local and mayoral elections and will provide a detailed assessment of the impact of each scheme to the Deputy Prime Minister by 1 August 2002.