Plymouth Labour's ill-fated Plymouth Knows Better campaign are under pressure again for using the electoral register to send thousands of letters to postal voters - in contrast to legal advice shared with campaigners.
The campaign is now facing a probe under electoral law, raising questions about fair play. Advice sent to all campaign teams following the briefing on 8th May stated that:
Plymouth City Council have received legal advice on this matter. The advice received is that political parties are not able to use their copy of the Register of Electors and/or absent voters list to campaign for either side of the referendum.
Despite the council's ruling, Labour's anti-Mayor campaign have been caught out using the electoral roll to send thousands of letters to postal voters anyway.
The response is dated 8th May, suggesting that the anti-Mayor campaign have known about this for six weeks.
Plymouth Plus was made aware of these concerns after readers received unsolicited letters to addresses across the city.
One letter states "You'll soon receive a postal vote in a city-wide referendum on whether Plymouth should be led by a directly elected City Mayor." The letter includes the full name and address, as well as the polling district number. For example under the address: "09 OB & OC Beaumont Road" these are electoral register codes that would have been obtained from the electoral roll.
Throughout the Privacy Notice on the Plymouth Knows Better website, reference is made to the use of the electoral register.
The campaign's Privacy Notice begins by stating that:
We are Plymouth Knows Better, a grassroots campaign based in Plymouth, United Kingdom which is being conducted by the Plymouth Labour Party.
The Notice then explains how the campaign collects personal data:
We collect personal data in a variety of ways and at a variety of times throughout our interactions with you.
We refer to “direct data collection” when data is collected directly from you and we refer to “indirect data collection” when the data is not collected directly from you.
The Privacy Notice refers to the following data:
The ‘Marked Register’ data (the record of whether or not people on the electoral register voted at a given election, which is available for political parties to purchase) (indirect data collection);
The ‘Full Electoral Register’ (which is everyone that is registered to vote unless you are registered anonymously) which also includes your home address;
Although you may have opted out of the open register it does not affect whether political parties get access to your data or not i.e. even if you have opted out, we will still have a copy of your data from the open register.
The Mayor for Plymouth campaign has not yet commented on the allegations, but Plymouth Plus understands that the concerns have been raised with senior officials within Plymouth City Council.
The revelation is also embarrassing for opposition politicians who have endorsed the Plymouth Knows Better campaign.
Conservative leader Cllr Andy Lugger and Green Party leader Cllr Lauren McLay both appear on the reverse of the letter - yet their endorsements are being used to collect data for the Labour party.
This suggests that Tudor Evans and Labour councillors will go to any length to block Plymouth from directly electing their leader - and perhaps more importantly that local Labour politicians don't think the rules apply to them.
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