The British electoral system should be urgently overhauled to restore voter confidence, protect against fraud and bring it into the 21st century, the election watchdog says today.

The Electoral Commission calls on the Government for the first time to consider a national register with details of every voter to help to eliminate postal vote fraud.

This should be backed by individual registration where each member of a household signs up to vote, providing a date of birth and national insurance number. The commission claims that the current system is under “severe strain” with town halls having to respond to unco-ordinated and often last-minute demands from ministers.

Its main recommendation is a comprehensive shake-up of the way elections are administered with new independent management boards set up in Scotland, six English regions, and Wales, each reporting to a chairman.

“We are still trying to run 21st-century elections with 19th-century structures and the system is under severe strain,” said Sam Younger, the commission chairman.

Today's report follows a string of criticisms from election judges and the Rowntree Trust, warning that efforts to increase postal voting had raised the risk of fraud and undermined public confidence.

The report, Electoral Administration in the UK, was partly prompted by escalating cases of fraud, first highlighted by The Times in 2004 during the local and European elections.

But the fiasco during the Scottish elections in May 2007, when nearly 5 per cent of ballot papers were spoilt or incomplete due to confusion over the voting system, was the prime catalyst for the new recommendations.

An inquiry into the scandal headed by Ron Gould, a Canadian elections expert, which said that voters had been treated as “an afterthought”, backed the appointment of a chief returning officer (CRO) for Scotland.

The Electoral Commission's proposal appears to be at variance with this although the commission said that the board's convener would have the same function as a CRO.

Murdo Fraser, deputy leader of the Scottish Conservatives, said that he had doubts over whether “a large new quango” was needed to administer elections.

“The proposals are uncosted and likely to lead to an unnecessarily and unwieldy re-organisation,” he added.

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