To its credit, Cornwall Council has compiled a register of properties whose owners seek a discount on their council tax because it is not their principle place of residence.
This document is secret and I'm trying to find out why. Clearly, it has the potential to be something of a "burglars' charter" but it is also a valuable political campaign tool. Since it was researched and written at public expense, I'm curious to know why it is not in the public domain.
Readers with long memories will recall the St Ives constituency Parliamentary election of 1987. Now, I'm all in favour of inclusivity and making it easier for people to vote, but in St Ives that year quite a few people apparently made it to the polling station despite the considerable handicap of being dead.
What had happened was that well organised political activists had harvested the proxy votes of elderly residents in nursing homes. Clearly, they were alive when they signed over their proxy votes. But they were dead by polling day.
The council's register of second homes should make it possible to disqualify, or at least question, people seeking to cast general election votes from those addresses. But for local elections the law is far less demanding - it is possible to vote in council elections wherever you are on the electoral register.
So in local council by-elections, where the turnout is low, and postal votes can play a significant role, there must be a temptation to harvest the potential of the second home owner. As the government seems in no hurry to address this issue, it seems only fair that the information should be freely available to all election candidates, and not just those rich enough to organise detailed campaigns.
I have asked the council for further details about why the register of second homes is "not a public document." A balance between "right to know" and "data protection?" This might be one for the Information Commissioner.
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