Junk mail companies should not be allowed to buy names and addresses from the electoral register, polling officers believe.

They say that the sale of the electoral roll to direct-marketing companies discourages people from registering to vote.

A survey carried out by the Local Government Association and the Association of Electoral Administrators, published today, shows that 98 per cent of electoral officers in the country want a change of law to stop companies gaining access to the electoral register.

Under regulations introduced in 2002 direct-marketing companies were given the right to buy an edited version of the electoral register.

Residents can remove their name from these edited versions by ticking the “opt-out” box on the voter registration form that is posted out every year. Many do not notice the box or fail to recognise what it is for.

Councils raise an average £1,900 a year from selling the edited register but this barely covers the cost of administering registers and dealing with requests. Standard charges are £20 plus £1.50 per 1,000 voters for online data and £10 plus £5 per 1,000 voters for a printed version.

The full register is available for public viewing in town halls but it is monitored by officials, and companies cannot take down lists of names and addresses. It can, however, be sold to political parties and credit agencies.

The Government is under pressure to change the law from other quarters. In July Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, recommended that the Government introduce regulations to stop councils selling the edited registers. His joint report with Mark Walport, director of the Wellcome Trust, found that about 40 per cent of those registered to vote opted out of having their details forwarded, but others were confused by the forms.

“There is some evidence that people don’t sign registers because of anxieties of their details being passed on elsewhere,” Mr Thomas said yesterday. “We have no difficulty with the register being passed on to political parties or credit agencies. But we do not recognise the argument that it should be widely available for marketing purposes.”

Richard Kemp, deputy chairman of the Local Government Association, said: “The new survey clearly shows that town halls hugely resent having to pass the electoral roll to direct-marketing companies. Most people hate junk mail and cold calling and councils don’t want to be part of the process that generates money for junk mail companies in this way.

“Selling the electoral roll undermines democracy, dissuades people from voting and gives people the impression that the council is profiteering from selling their personal information,” Mr Kemp said. “Ministers must change the law.”

John Turner, chief executive of the Association of Electoral Administrators, said that the register should be used only for elections. “Other uses compromise the register’s democratic legitimacy and clearly act as a significant deterrent to the aim of persuading all eligible electors to register.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said that it would issue a response to Mr Thomas’s report when it had considered the implications. “We agree that measures need to be taken to increase public trust and confidence in the handling and processing of personal data by the public and private sectors,” he said.

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