A national database should be established to register allegations of electoral offences, a committee of MPs has recommended.

In a report published on Thursday, the Commons committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister argued that more rigorous prosecution and stricter penalties were needed for those accused or found guilty of such crimes.

Information and guidance should be given to police officers, along with search and arrest powers in these cases, the MPs argued.

In response to the increased use of all-postal ballots, the committee called for the introduction of individual voter registration, with a signature and numeric identifier needed before the vote can be cast.

More resources should also be allocated to allow electoral officers to verify a sample of signatures on returned ballots, the report concluded.

Pilots

"All-postal voting pilots appear to have increased voter turnout, but the government should not hold any more pilots after those in June, until it has addressed whether to change the voter registration system," said chairman of the committee Andrew Bennett.

"Over recent years there seems to have been an increasing number of incidences of attempted fraud at elections.

"It is important for the future of democracy that the police take any allegations of electoral fraud seriously.

"Together with returning officers and the Crown Prosecution Service, they have a responsibility to ensure that any hint of electoral fraud is swiftly and rigorously investigated, regardless of the election result."

The report was welcomed by shadow local government secretary Eric Pickles.

"Conservatives have consistently been calling for changes to the law to safeguard the secrecy of individual votes before all-postal voting is used on a widespread scale," he said.

"We welcome the proposals in this report and call on the government to give parliamentary time to introduce legislation to enact them.

"However since the report recommends the government does not carry out anymore pilots after June until it has addressed whether to change the voter registration system, this calls into question the government's plan for all-postal ballots in the regional assembly referendums this autumn."