Postal Vote fraud rife!

Interestingly enough figures have shown that postal votes are up in many areas, in some cases by as much as 500% (though I can't remember where).

This is obviously presenting a challenge for the counting staff as there are a lot more to verify this time around.

However the BBC brings us news that in the two wards in Birmingham where a judge said that the level of fraud would have shamed a banana republic, postal votes are sharply down, by as much as 80%.

Constitutional affairs minister Bridget Prentice has said that the postal vote system is as secure as it can be which is a bit untrue as we still do not have individual registrations. However if it was the case the statement is a clear demonstration of why postal votes on demand need to be scrapped.

They are not secret ballots, and anyone can apply for one. Whilst I am at it the electoral roll system needs some work as well. I keep coming across properties where the electoral roll shows the owner rather than the tenant, which would be OK, but the owner may well own several properties and so get several votes, whilst the tenant ends up with none. We need to make it clear that the electoral roll is for the people that live in a property not those who own it.

Lastly, the only way to get vote fraud down is to end postal votes on demand, and if the concern is that turnout will drop, then we just need to move the day of voting to either a Saturday or Sunday, or preferably both.

The BBC has this.

Postal Vote fraud in full swing

According to this article in the Sunday Times, Labour are at it in Leeds. They are "helping" people fill out their postal votes.

What is more the article highlights the way in which some community networks gather in postal votes and make sure they all vote the "right way".

Postal votes are not a secret ballot. They are open to mass fraud. This brings our democracy into disrepute.

I wonder what the Polish election observers would say?

hat tip to Brummie Bounder on politicalbetting.com for the link to the Times article.

For more on voting fraud see here.

Voting fraud, 1 million ghost voters

I have been concerned about voting fraud for some time now, but my concerns were limited to votes being stolen or people having their votes "checked" when using postal votes.

There is however another danger which is the danger of ghost voters highlighted in the Sunday Times today. Studies indicate that there may be between 1 and 3.5 million people on the electoral role who either have no right to vote or may indeed not exist at all.

In 1997 I think we all had a fair degree of confidence in our electoral system, now that is collapsing. It may well be the case that people who should not be on the electoral role are there through their own error or ignorance of the rules, but rather obviously people who don't exist did not get there by mere inadvertent mistake. Councils can be won or lost by one or two votes in key wards. There is a real danger of elections being stolen.

How is it that we have come to the stage when we have Polish election observers and some compare our elections to a banana republic?

The system needs reform, but not just to get turnout up, but to stamp on fraud. If we want to get turn out up, then we can change the voting day.

For more on voting fraud see here.

Voting Fraud, you can help stamp it out

I have written about voting fraud before here. I don't like any form of voting where the voter does not turn up at the polling station because of the potential for fraud and intimidation.

On top of that postal voting seems fraught with with opportunities to steal peoples votes. I do not believe enough has been done to combat this. We will have election monitors from Poland to see oversee our elections. Ridiculous.

While this is happening the government ploughs on regardless with other ways of voting potentially open to fraud such as telephone and Internet voting, all in the name of increasing voter turnout. Not enough thought has been given to the vast increase in the potential for fraud.

Electronic voting will be carried out in Rushmoor, Sheffield, Shrewsbury & Atcham, South Bucks and Swindon.

Electronic counting will be piloted in: Bedford, Breckland, Dover, South Bucks, Stratford-on-Avon District Council and Warwick District Council.

If you live in these areas you can help. The Open Rights Group is looking for volunteer election monitors. You can learn more here and sign up to help here.

Lets keep our elections democratic!

End Postal Votes on demand now! End vote fraud!

Sometimes I find myself in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with almost every word spoken by George Galloway MP for Bethnal Green and Bow. However on this issue I agree. In fact I agreed with almost every word he said.

I read this article on Respects website, and watched the youtube video of his speech to parliament on the issue of fraudulently gained postal votes. He cited much shenanigans in Tower Hamlets. Here are some choice quotes:

"Listening to the Minister tonight, one would not think that in addition to welcoming Polish plumbers, builders, bus drivers and vegetable pickers, we should now be forced to welcome a Polish parliamentarian to investigate large-scale voting fraud here, in the mother of all Parliaments."

Shocking isn't it, that our elections should be investigated for fraud by a country that was 18 years ago in the grip of tyranny?

When, hard on the heels of the Second Reform Act of 1867, Gladstone introduced the Ballot Act 1872 to enshrine that right in law, that was a vital step forward for democracy in Britain, but it is being recklessly tossed aside. The claimed justification for the changes to the postal voting system is that they will increase voter participation. Of that there is not one jot of evidence, but there is plenty of evidence of how wide open to corruption they have made the political system.

Good turn of words. However one thing George did not hammer home in his speech is the nature of the secret ballot. Let us say for example that you live with a candidate for an election. You could tell them you are going to vote for them, right up until the point you go into the polling booth, and make your mark, vote for someone else, and then having cast your vote come and and say you voted for them. When you have a postal vote that becomes much harder. Peer or indeed parental pressure can get you to change your vote. It is wrong, and it is not secret. However George goes on to list many examples of potential fraud in his own seat at the council elections, and others. Here are some other quotes.

"Trade unions affiliated to new Labour sent out postal vote application forms by the hundreds of thousands to their members and others, and asked them to return the forms not to the town hall charged with managing the election, but to their trade union headquarters, to a post office box hundreds of miles away from the person filling in the form. There was no good reason for that, but there are plenty of bad reasons on which one could speculate. It is but a short step from that manipulation of the electoral process,which is none the less legal, to the fraudulent application for postal votes by people other than the voters themselves, with the instruction that the vote should be sent to an address other than the registered address of the voter.

In Tower Hamlets last May, we witnessed the most corrupt election held in Britain since 1872. Hundreds of votes were purloined by crooks applying for postal votes and getting them redirected to an address sometimes just doors away from the registered address of the voter. Whole blocks of flats woke up to discover that every one of their residents had applied for a postal vote to be redirected to another address without their knowledge. Some 2,800 postal vote applications were delivered to the town hall in Tower Hamlets in the last hours of the last day, and many were brought in by sitting councillors. A total of 18,732 postal votes were registered in Tower Hamlets: a vast increase on the vast increase that had occurred at the general election the year before. Almost 15 per cent. of those were delivered on the last afternoon. A total of 946 postal votes were redirected to addresses that were not the registered address of the voter, with considerably more as a percentage in the wards where new Labour councillors were under pressure."

However what ought to concern everyone involved in politics the most is this:

"Like the Minister, I am a former Labour party official. I have been fighting elections for almost40 years, almost always on the winning side. I know about elections. Now, for the first time in my political life, people ask me, "How do we know that they are counting these votes fairly? How do we know they are not rigging the election?" I am not saying that that is happening, but there is a systematic undermining of confidence in the electoral process, caused largely by postal vote fraud."

You can read the full text of the speech here, and indeed watch the video.

There are two problems here. The first is vote fraud, as highlighted up and down the land, then there is the lack of enforced secrecy of the ballot. It is a huge mistake.