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This scenario can be couched in terms of a UMA (User Managed Access) Scenario and Use Case. The electoral roll scenario has some similarities to the 'Sharing Trustworthy Data With Future Employers' one that has been accepted as an input to the UMA protocol development.
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The information flow presently covers both the offline and online world, although part of the logic in exploring this issue is that governments (e.g. UK) would be keen to move as much/ all of this process online if that were to possible without loss if of security/ identity assurance.
At present, each local council/ authority mails its citizen base once each year, with one letter to each property on its database. This letter will either be addressed to a known 'head of household' from the previous years survey, or to 'the occupier'. Responding to this letter is a legal obligation, the head of household must complete base level details (name and date of birth and opt-out/ opt-in for edited roll/ direct marketing, address is assumed) of each resident. (aside - actual response rate is by no means 100% complete or 100% accurate, and obviously there is an 'in-year' lag in the data. The postal response from an originally letter posted to a specific address is assumed to be strong enough proof that an individual does indeed reside at that address on a permanent basis (with some assumptions/ modifications made around specific communities like students, military personnel etc).
When returned to the electoral roll manager at the local authority, it is then his/ her role to collate and 'manage access' to that roll, and each record on it. Access to the individuals electoral roll record at present works as follows:
1) The council publishes a hard copy of the roll in local libraries and in the town hall in order that a local citizen can use it manually (there is no restriction in use within the location of publication).
2) The council sells an electronic copy of the roll to anyone who wants to buy it, and makes it available for use in local and national elections by political parties and those managing elections.
Aside: UK is in the process of updating how The Electoral Roll is managed from the policy perspective, with an Act of Parliament mandating that new process be in place by 2014 that ensure the electoral roll record is maintained by each individual voter, rather than by head of household as happens at present. The Act of Parliament does not/ will not mandate any specific technological route for the new mechanism, technical choices will be made on merit, with each deployer able to make their own decisions.
One individual-centric variant of a new process could work as follows: