For the reasons set forth below, an elector must provide his name, his address, the last four digits of his Social Security number, his signature, if it is a written request submitted by the elector, and his voter registration identification number, when requesting an absentee ballot.
Data matching will be of limited use to the government in introducing individual electoral registration, especially in identifying potential electors, says a report by parliament's political and constitutional reform committee.
It also warned that changes in the way people need to register to vote, coming into force in July 2014, "could lead to potential confusion for electors, as well as posing practical challenges for electoral registration officers in Scotland to ensure that the registers used both for voting and campaigning at the referendum are complete and accurate".
"All of the affected electors will also be written to by their local electoral registration officer with an explanation of what happened and will be told that they will not be able to vote at the referendum".
"The commission points out that 2014 may be a time of significant change for electoral registration, and that holding the referendum that year 'could lead to potential confusion for electors as well as posing practical challenges for Electoral Registration Officers in Scotland'," said a Scotland Office spokesman.
Electoral registration officers are currently testing the computer system that will be used to match the names and addresses of existing electors against the Department for Work and Pensions database.
Before synchronisation with the National Register of Electors, the provincial voter list included 71% of eligible electors; after the 2005 provincial election in May 2005, the first to use the synchronised system, it was expected to be 93%, increasing voter registration from 2.11 million to 2.82 million electors from 2.98 million eligible resident citizens.
The Election Act of British Columbia permits the provincial chief electoral officer to "register as voters those individuals who appear to be qualified to register as voters" and to "update current voter registration information" based on the National Register of Electors without the involvement of the individual.
The Northwest Territories updates its voter list based on information in the National Register of Electors, as well as obtaining data from medical insurance data, the Student Financial Assistance program, and voter registration data held by municipal or Aboriginal governments.
