I’d like to add my tuppenceworth to the extraordinary story that Ed Howker has
revealed in this week’s magazine about the funding of the
‘Yes to AV’ campaign. His investigation has exposed the Electoral Reform Society as little more than a front for a massive £21 million-a-year corporation called ERSL, which flogs
voting equipment and services at a remarkable profit. Ed got hold of the accounts for ERSL, its money-spinning division, and a line jumped out at me: accounts. “A very healthy profit margin
of 24 percent is nice to have,” it rather smugly said. You can say that again. That means, for every £4 it charges its clients (for the printing of ballot papers, sending of letters,
etc) it made £1of profit.
How can it get away with charging so much more than its services actually cost? This explains why this tiny “Society” managed to find £1 million a remarkable sum to funnel to the
AV campaign. It had become a conduit, pushing funds towards a campaign from a corporation with a clear vested interest in the outcome. If Britain moves to AV elections, with a 1st and 2nd and 3rd
preference, they are more complicated – and will cost more to administer. All the more profit to be made for ERSL which (it says) printed 156m election-related items last year. The
moneyspinning arm was thus able to fund the Yes campaign without the true source of funds becoming known. It is, at the very least, dishonest. And it is all the more disappointing that this was
carefully concealed by a Society that purports to advance transparency and honesty in our elections.
The Society was founded more than a century ago by campaigners advancing a cause without any thought of profit. It produces valuable research on elections, and has become a trusted source. It
should never, in my view, have morphed into a vast money-spinning corporation because this represents a vast conflict of interest. Given that more than 90 per cent of the Society’s funding
comes from the ERSL’s dividend, it will not be able to shake the accusation that when AV came on the cards, pound signs appeared in the eyes of its directors. In fact, as we now know, ERSL
specifically stated that it would pay an ‘advanced dividend’ of £1m to fund the AV campaign.
A Society that had been dismissing AV for years (the leaked documents nervously list all the times its staff have gone on record denouncing AV) is suddenly having us believe that it has had an
almighty change of heart. Today, we learn that it stands to profit from AV. This will do nothing to strengthen the case to abandon the current system.
UPDATE: The below is from the Society’s website. A Freudian slip?
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