The dire Tom Watson MP has an
interesting admission in an article in his blog today:
"In the last Euro elections, Labour took about 22% of the vote. Mr Smith (Mike Smithson of Political betting) reminds us that in the last elections, Labour did better where there were all-postal-vote elections. That’s not happening this time around."
Now why would Labour do better where there are "all-postal-vote elections"? I just can't imagine what the reasons might be...
Remember what happened in the
Glenrothes by-election where the marked electoral registers were lost by the courts.
Remember what the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe reported in 2007:
"It is clear that the electoral system in Great Britain is open to electoral fraud. This vulnerability is mainly the result of the, rather arcane, system of voter registration without personal identifiers. It was exacerbated by the introduction of postal voting on demand [in 2001]"
Do you also remember the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust report, Purity of Elections, from 2008 which said:
"Experienced election observers have raised serious concerns about how well UK election procedures measure up to international standards.
There have been at least 42 convictions for electoral fraud in the UK in the period 2000–2007.
Greater use of postal voting has made UK elections far more vulnerable to fraud and resulted in several instances of large-scale fraud.
There is widespread, and justifiable, concern about both the comprehensiveness and the accuracy of the UK’s electoral registers – the poor state of the registers potentially compromises the integrity of the ballot.
There is a genuine risk of electoral integrity being threatened by previously robust systems of electoral administration having reached ‘breaking point’ as a result of pressures imposed in recent years.
Public confidence in the electoral process in the UK was the lowest in Western Europe in 1997, and has almost certainly declined further as a result of the extension of postal voting.
The benefits of postal and electronic voting have been exaggerated, particularly in relation to claims about increased turnout and social inclusion.
There is substantial evidence to suggest that money can have a powerful impact on the outcome of general elections, particularly where targeted at marginal constituencies over sustained periods of time.
Outside of ministerial circles, there is a widespread view that a fundamental overhaul of UK electoral law, administration and policy is urgently required"
That same report included this devastating passage:
"Wilks-Heeg commented that the current controversies about the integrity of elections in the UK ‘are without precedent in recent British political history’ and that during the past ten years views on electoral procedures have moved away from ‘a broad consensus in favour of ‘modernising’ reforms to a highly polarised debate centred on competing claims about the extent of electoral malpractice and the degree to which ballot secrecy are being compromised.’ His research and analysis into convictions for electoral malpractice over the past 15 years suggested however that ‘that there would not appear to be any specific patterns to these convictions; they are not restricted to a single political party, to specific geographical areas or to particular migrant communities.’35 The majority of cases concerned elections in England and Wilks-Heeg noted that ‘there is no denying that numerous convictions for electoral fraud since 2000 have concerned postal and proxy ballot fraud in specific inner-urban wards where a large concentration of voters originate from the Indian sub-continent’ and he cited the cases in Oldham, Blackburn, Burnley and Birmingham.
The report also examined the effect of the Biraderi system on electoral practices in some British Asian communities. Wilks-Heeg acknowledged that this issue required further and more detailed research and that much of the existing knowledge depended heavily on largely anecdotal evidence but he noted that ‘it has been widely suggested that the Biraderi system disenfranchises voters, given the combination of a patriarchal clan system and widespread ‘use of postal voting, in which ballot papers are completed within the family home, or, in some cases, taken to a central facility (so called ‘voting factories’) for completion by party representatives.’"
Remember The Times reporting that Richard Mawrey, QC, had said that postal voting on demand was “lethal to the democratic process” and that the current system made “wholesale electoral fraud both easy and profitable” and accused politicians of failing to act after past scandals. He urged sweeping reforms to electoral law dealing with corruption."
Remember Newsnight's expose of Labour electoral fraud in Birmingham from October 2007, here are just some key phrases from the report - "Banana Republic", "told lies", "bribe their way into power", "city wide election fraud", "thousands of £s bribing voters", "£20 per postal vote", Asian drug addicts paid to impersonate voters in multiple polling stations - 25 times at £5 a go, "corrupt and illegal practices". So that's the same man found guilty in 2004 (although cleared on a procedural appeal) and up before the electoral court again in 2007.
Remember the Yorkshire Post story from October 2007 that said
"SEVEN people will appear in court next month accused of postal ballot fraud in Bradford at the last General Election....During the May 2005 election, former Bradford returning officer Philip Robinson referred 252 cases of possible election fraud to the police. In April 2006, West Yorkshire Police passed files on 11 men and two women to the CPS following its investigation in Bradford. The common law offence of conspiracy to defraud a returning officer can carry a hefty penalty. In 2005 in Blackburn, a Labour councillor admitted conspiracy to defraud the returning officer. He was jailed for three years and seven months."
Remember the
report on Postal voting and electoral fraud. It contains this warning from Alan Duncan:
"The greatest problem with all-postal ballots lies in the loss of confidence caused by the massive scope that exists for electoral malpractice. Under the traditional system, there was perhaps a minor chance that someone would be able to impersonate someone else, and exercise another person’s right to vote. Under all-postal voting, there is massive scope for fraud and undue influence. It is, at every turn, open to fiddles. So much can go amiss between the ballot paper being sent out by the returning officer and it coming back to him. Votes can be gathered up when lying on the doorstep or in flats.9"
Finally referring back to the
Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust report, Purity of Elections, here is their Chronology - makes you proud of British democracy doesn't it?
"June 2003 The Electoral Commission published Voting for change: an electoral law modernisation programme. The Commission called for more robust security arrangements for absent voting and more effective tools for prosecutors, including new offences in relation to postal voting applications and electoral registration. The Commission also called for individual registration with new requirements for individual voter identifiers.
10 June 2004 European Parliamentary and local elections. All-postal voting took place in four pilot areas, the North East, the North West, Yorkshire & the Humber and the East Midlands.
August 2004 The Electoral Commission published Delivering democracy? The future of postal voting. The Commission recommended that all-postal voting should not be pursued for use at UK statutory elections and that there should be primary legislation as soon as possible to provide for an updated offence of undue influence in relation to postal voting and a new offence relating to the fraudulent completion of postal vote applications.
9 December 2004 The Government published its responses to the Electoral Commission’s reports Delivering democracy? The future of postal voting and Voting for change – an electoral law modernisation programme.
3 April 2005 Sam Younger, chairman of the Electoral Commission, acknowledged that the large increase in postal voting at the general election could be open to abuse. Interviewed on GMTV’s Sunday Programme, Mr Younger said that it was important that legislation was introduced as soon as possible after the general election to introduce new safeguards.
4 April 2005 Judgment announced in respect of the allegations of postal voting fraud in the Birmingham wards of Bordesley Green and Aston. Both elections were declared void. Richard Mawrey QC said that the evidence of electoral fraud ‘would disgrace a banana republic.’
5 April 2005 The Minister for Local and Regional Government, Nick Raynsford, made a statement to the House of Commons on the judgment in respect of allegations of postal voting fraud in the Birmingham wards of Bordesley Green and Aston.
8 April 2005 Former Labour councillor on Blackburn Council, Mohammed Hussain, was jailed for stealing 233 people’s postal votes in 2002. Hussain was given a sentence of 3 years and 7 months for tricking voters into handing over their blank ballot papers. The police said he had sent friends to collect postal ballots and then arranged a ‘conveyor belt’ at his home to put crosses next to his name. Judge Peter Openshaw said that he had no precedent for deciding Hussein’s punishment because election fraud on such a scale had been unknown in Britain for 100 years.
10 April 2005 The Sunday Times reported that there were fears that there would be vote-rigging in the constituency of Blackburn. Craig Murray, an Independent candidate, said he had been approached by several people in the Asian community ‘who are under huge pressure from Labour activists to apply for a postal vote…and then hand over their postal vote to the Labour party.’
14 April 2005 John Owen, head of Birmingham’s electoral services team, was suspended after the discovery of 1,000 uncounted postal votes from the city council elections in June 2004.
18 April 2005 The Times reported that the Liberal Democrat candidate for Leicester South had alleged that senior members of the Asian community in his constituency were putting pressure on voters to register for a postal vote and then instructing them who to vote for. Parmit Singh Gill said ‘a number of people have told me that this is going on, but because of pressure not to bring shame on the community, none of these sources will come forward. I have no evidence to present to the authorities because no one will go on the record.’
21 April 2005 Mr Justice Collins rejected an application by John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat candidate for Birmingham Yardley, for a judicial review of the postal voting system. Mr Justice Collins said that the application was premature but he accepted that there were insufficient safeguards and that the next government would come under ‘tremendous pressure’ to tighten the postal voting rules.
A meeting was held at the Department for Constitutional Affairs on the same day of civil servants, returning officers, the chairman of the Electoral Commission and representatives of the Royal Mail and the police to discuss the risks of postal voting fraud at the general election. The DCA said that a public information campaign to warn voters of the risk of fraud would be stepped up and that ‘all reasonable measures to identify and tackle potential fraud will be fully funded.’
26 April 2005 A statement on postal voting was issued by the Electoral Commission:
The Electoral Commission believes that the postal voting process needs to be strengthened and we have made a series of recommendations to improve the integrity of the system. We expect the Government to move quickly after the election to implement our recommendations.
In our view the key to providing the appropriate level of security lies in reform of voter registration. Collecting individual voter identifiers like a signature and date of birth at registration would enable them to be checked against postal vote applications and postal ballots.
Around 6 million electors have asked for a postal vote, and many of them have used postal votes before because they find this method more convenient for them. It would be wrong in our view to deprive them of that facility because we believe that there is enough awareness of the risks and that enough steps are being taken for postal voters to cast their ballot with confidence. Where any allegations arise, we are confident that Returning Officers and the police will respond robustly in order to ensure the integrity of the election.
3 May 2005 The Court of Appeal considered a challenge to the ruling by the election commissioner, Richard Mawrey QC, in Birmingham in April. The election of six Labour councillors in the wards of Bordesley Green and Aston had been declared void as a result of the ruling. The Court of Appeal cleared Muhammed Afzal of being personally guilty of corrupt and illegal practices involving postal voting in the ward of Aston. However the rulings against the other two councillors in Aston still stand.
12 May 2005 The Times reported that the police were conducting 25 inquiries in 19 constituencies, mostly into alleged postal ballot fraud in the general election.
17 May 2005 Following the general election the Government announced in the Queen’s Speech that ‘legislation will be brought forward to encourage greater voter participation in elections while introducing further measures to combat fraud and increase security’.
20 May 2005 The Electoral Commission published its report Securing the vote:
This report sets out a package of recommendations for change to the process of registering to vote and applying for, receiving and casting a postal or proxy vote, together with recommendations relating to the process of voting in person at a polling station. We believe that these changes are essential measures to secure the future of postal voting. We also regard it as essential that any changes to reform the foundations of electoral processes in the UK are realistically and appropriately resourced, in order that they can be implemented effectively and in a timely fashion.
25 May 2005 The Department for Constitutional Affairs published Electoral Administration: a policy paper for discussion. The Government asked for written responses to the paper to be submitted by 10 June 2005. In the foreword Lord Falconer stated that the Government believed that the recent general and local elections were safe and secure and had produced results that were fair and accurate. However, ‘there were a number of issues, which arose during the course of the election, which may have raised issues of public confidence’. The Government aimed to introduce legislation as soon as possible to have as many of the proposed security measures in place for the local elections in May 2006 but also wanted to achieve as much consensus as possible on the proposals.
1 June 2005 The Times reported that the Respect candidate Salma Yaqoob had presented a petition seeking to overturn the election of Roger Godsiff in the constituency of
Birmingham Sparkbrook and Small Heath. The constituency includes the ward of Bordesley Green where the local elections were declared void by an election court in April 2005. The Birmingham Post reported on 15 July 2006 that the Respect challenge to the election alleging widespread postal vote fraud had been withdrawn after Salma Yaqoob failed to secure legal aid to pursue the action.
11 October 2005 The Electoral Administration Bill 2005-06 was introduced into the Commons. The Bill was intended to improve the overall administration and enhance the security of elections. For further details of the Bill see Library Research Paper 05/65.47 The Bill introduced a new offence of falsely applying for a postal vote.
25 October 2005 Second reading of the Electoral Administration Bill 2005-06.
27 February 2006 The Electoral Commission and the Association of Chief Police Officers published guidance for local police forces on preventing and detecting voting fraud.
9 March 2006 The Representation of the People (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2006 made a number of amendments to the Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001. Some of the provisions, which came into force before the local elections took place on 4 May 2006, aimed to improve the security of postal voting. The Department for Constitutional Affairs outlined these measures as follows:
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Reason to be given for re-direction of postal vote
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Closing date for applications for postal votes to be 11 days before the poll (applications for proxy votes still allowed up to six days before the poll)
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‘Emergency’ proxy votes for incapacity after sixth day allowed up to day of poll
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All outcome of applications for postal votes to be confirmed in writing
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Replacement postal voting papers to be available up to 5pm on day of poll
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Replacements allowed for lost or spoiled voting papers - not just ballot papers
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Allow for postal votes returned to polling stations to be collected throughout polling day
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Provision for ‘Form K’ to be completed for both parliamentary and local elections and sent to Secretary of State and Electoral Commission within 10-15 days after the day of the poll
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Clarification of the power to check signatures for postal vote applications
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Allow electors to apply for a postal vote when registering to vote, though using separate forms.
21 March 2006 The three main political parties signed up to the Electoral Commission’s code of conduct on the handling of postal votes. The code provides guidance for the political parties, candidates and canvassers on the handling of postal vote applications and postal ballot papers. The Commission said that the code aimed ‘to balance the important role parties and candidates play in encouraging people to vote with the need to protect secrecy and minimise the risk or perception of fraud.’ The code advises candidates and canvassers:
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not to handle or help voters complete their postal ballot papers;
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to encourage voters to post or deliver ballot papers themselves;
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if asked to take a completed ballot paper to make sure that the voter has sealed it first, and to post or return it to the Returning Officer immediately;
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to ensure that voters complete ballot papers in secret and seal them personally; and
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not to solicit completed postal ballot papers from electors
27 and 28 April 2006 The Times reported that the police were investigating postal vote fraud in East London where it had been alleged that hundreds of votes had been stolen from residential tower blocks. The claims had been made by Respect and other parties fighting local elections in Tower Hamlets where postal vote applications had nearly doubled since 2005. The Times also reported that the police were investigating vote-rigging allegations in six other London boroughs; Harrow, Kensington & Chelsea, Merton, Southwark, Hounslow and Barnet. There was also an inquiry underway in Birmingham. A Conservative candidate in Oxford was being investigated by police after being accused of forging signatures on his nomination papers.
4 May 2006 Local elections in England.
5 and 6 May 2006 The Times reported allegations of intimidation and mishandling of ballot papers in Woking as well as claims of vote-rigging in Birmingham and London. Three councils, Peterborough, Lewisham and Brentwood, had carried out a pilot scheme of asking all voters at polling stations to sign for their ballot papers. The Electoral Commission is to evaluate the schemes. There were continuing problems in Tower Hamlets where two Respect candidates were barred from standing for election because their nomination papers were judged invalid by the Returning Officer. A subsequent court case found in the claimants’ favour and the judge ordered a fresh election. However the Returning Officer appealed and this was upheld. George Galloway MP has announced that he will mount a legal challenge to the election in Tower Hamlets amid further allegations of voting fraud. There had been reports that a number of people had been denied the right to vote after turning up at polling stations only to be told they had already cast a postal vote.
5 June 2006 The Times reported that the police in Coventry were investigating allegations that there had been personation offences in the ward of Foleshill at the local elections in May Police investigate ‘postal vote theft on massive scale’, Times, 28 April 2006 and that there had also been postal voting fraud. An election petition has been lodged at the High Court by the defeated Labour councillor in the ward giving the names and addresses of ten voters whose identities were apparently stolen:
The Times has seen passports of three voters, a veteran Labour Party member and a young couple, which indicate that they were out of the country on election day, May 4. Documents also seen by the newspaper show that staff in polling stations in Coventry that day clearly marked the three down as having turned up and voted. The Conservatives won the ward, Foleshill, by six votes after a recount, one of two gains that turned a deadlocked council into one with a slender Tory lead.
The Times also reported that five people have been bailed in Birmingham in connection with two police investigations into the local elections and that police are investigating complaints of irregularities in nine London boroughs.
11 July 2006 The Electoral Administration Bill 2005-06 received Royal Assent. The new Act created two new election offences to improve the security of the electoral system and tightened up the offence of undue influence so that an attempt to prevent the free exercise of the franchise would also amount to a corrupt practice even if it was not successful. Section 15 makes it an offence to supply false information or fail to supply information to an electoral registration officer at any time and Section 40 makes it an offence to falsely apply for a postal or proxy vote. Section 14 of the Act makes provision for the collection of personal identifiers, signatures and dates of birth, from electors applying to vote by post or proxy and for these to be provided on the postal vote statement, thus enabling checks to be carried out to ensure that the identifiers correspond.
31 July 2006 The election petition relating to the local election in Foleshill, Coventry, was thrown out by the High Court on a technicality following a challenge to the petition by the city’s Returning Officer, Chris Hinde.
1 September 2006 The Peterborough Evening Telegraph reported that Mohammed Choudhary, who was the city's mayor from May 1996 to April 1997, had appeared at Peterborough Crown Court the day before. Choudhary is facing 13 charges of defrauding election officers by submitting false postal ballots.
11 September 2006 Sections 15 and 40 of the Electoral Administration Act 2006 came into force. These sections related to the new offences of supplying false information to an electoral registration officer and of falsely applying for a postal or proxy vote. For further details of the first Commencement Order for the Act see Library Standard Note SN/PC/4144. The Government indicated that the Act will be implemented in full in time for the May 2007 elections.
15 September 2006 A man who obtained two postal votes at different addresses and voted twice in the 2005 local elections in the Aston ward of Birmingham was fined by magistrates:
Ahmad Ali pleaded guilty to contravening the Representation of the People Act during the Aston ward by-election last year after voting twice by postal ballot and was fined £100 with £43 costs. The small fine, described by Ali's legal representative as a "slap on the wrists", surprised police officers who had been anticipating a larger penalty for an offence where the maximum fine is £5,000. Fraud Squad officers and council officials had privately hoped for a much larger fine which, it was thought, would act as a deterrent to others. The hearing, at Birmingham Magistrates Court, followed extensive investigations into alleged fraud in by- elections in Aston and Bordesley Green. Inquiries regarding several other cases are continuing.
25 September 2006 The trial of two Burnley councillors accused of electoral fraud began at Preston Crown Court. Two Liberal Democrat councillors, Mozaquir Ali and Manzoor Hussain, were accused of conspiracy to defraud the Borough’s Returning Officer by dishonestly causing and permitting applications for proxy votes at the local elections of June 2004 which were all-postal elections. Suspicions had been aroused by the large number of applications for proxy postal votes in the Daneshouse with Stoneyholme ward:
A Returning Officer has told a vote-rigging trial of her amazement at a surge in applications for proxy votes, nearly all of them coming from one of the poorest parts of Burnley. Gillian Taylor said that she received 195 applications from the ward of Daneshouse with Stoneyholme, in Lancashire. There were 15 applications from the rest of the borough.
27 September 2006 In Northern Ireland a Coleraine DUP Councillor, Dessie Stewart, admitted four counts of pretending to be someone else in order to cast postal votes and two of fraudulently stopping free exercise of a proxy vote at the local elections in May 2005. After appearing before Antrim Crown Court Mr Stewart resigned his seat and is awaiting sentencing in late October.
October 2006 An article by John Stewart in Parliamentary Affairs examined the investigation into electoral fraud by the Birmingham Election Court in 2005. Stewart concluded that ‘both academics and politicians have taken the integrity of the electoral process for granted’. He continued:
…there is no research on the extent of fraud and its causes, and, without research, difficult although it would be, it is impossible to be definitive about the causes. The danger of electoral corruption and fraud is that it is presently hidden. The Birmingham election court exposed its presence in one major British city. It is possible it would be found elsewhere if the same degree of scrutiny were applied.
18 October 2006 The Times reported that the Council of Europe is to investigate a possible breach of the European Convention on Human Rights in the UK because of ‘the growing body of evidence that widespread absent vote fraud is taking place’. The Council of Europe published further details of the planned inquiry on its website:
A committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) is to assess whether or not electoral fraud in the United Kingdom merits the opening of the Assembly’s “monitoring procedure”. Meeting yesterday in Yerevan, Armenia, PACE’s Monitoring Committee appointed two of its members, former German Justice Minister Herta Däubler-Gmelin (SOC) and Polish Senator Urszula Gacek (EPP/CD), to look into allegations of irregularities involving postal and absentee votes in Birmingham, Blackburn, Coventry and London. The decision was in response to a motion for a resolution, signed by 18 members of the Assembly, which said there was “a growing body of evidence that widespread absent vote fraud is taking place in the United Kingdom” and pointing out that holding free elections is an obligation of all Council of Europe member states. The motion calls for the opening of a monitoring procedure, which involves ongoing dialogue with a member state on the state of its democracy, rule of law and respect for human rights, as well as periodic plenary debates on its progress in honouring its Council of Europe obligations and commitments. The two parliamentarians said they intended to visit London and, if necessary, other parts of the United Kingdom before reporting their conclusions to the committee, which can then make a recommendation. A final decision on whether or not to open monitoring is taken by the plenary Assembly.
19 October 2006 The two Liberal Democrat councillors on trial for electoral fraud in Burnley at the local elections of 2004 were convicted of postal vote rigging. Manzur Hussain and Mozaquir Ali will be sentenced on 23 November 2006 and have been told to expect custodial sentences.
23 October 2006 The Times reported that the Metropolitan Police’s Special Prosecutions Unit is considering prosecuting several suspects after an investigation into allegations that hundreds of postal votes had been stolen from blocks of flats in Tower Hamlets during the local elections of May 2006. Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman said that it was the view of the Unit that ‘widespread use of postal votes has opened up a whole new area to be exploited by the fraudster and the opportunity has been taken.’ The report to the Metropolitan Police Authority by the SPU revealed that around 30 other offences arising from the local elections of May 2006 had been or were currently under investigation in addition to the postal voting fraud allegations in Tower Hamlets.
14 November 2006 The Coventry Evening Telegraph reported that investigations by the police into election irregularities at the local election in the Foleshill ward in Coventry in May 2006 were still continuing. The West Midlands police have won a court order allowing the ballot boxes to be opened to examine the ballot papers.
17 November 2006 Former Coleraine DUP Councillor, Dessie Stewart, was sentenced to four months in prison for electoral fraud. Stewart had pleaded guilty to six charges of fraud at the 2005 local elections. Judge Piers Grant said that a custodial sentence was called for because what Stewart had done ‘compromises our electoral system and attacks the very heart of our democracy.’
22 November 2006 In response to a PQ, the Minister of State for the Department for Constitutional Affairs, Bridget Prentice, said that the introduction of any monitoring of the electoral system by the Council of Europe would be ‘wholly unnecessary and unwarranted’ given the steps that have been taken to strengthen the security of postal voting in the UK.
23 November 2006 The two Liberal Democrat councillors, Manzur Hussain and Mozaquir Ali, convicted of postal vote rigging in Burnley at the 2004 local elections were both jailed for 18 months.
24 November 2006 Derbyshire police launched an investigation into allegations of electoral fraud at the local elections in May 2006. The police are looking at the use of postal votes in Derby’s Arboretum ward after a complaint was made by a former Labour councillor, Abdul Rehman, who lost his seat to the Liberal Democrats.
30 November 2006 The Times reported that West Yorkshire police had forwarded a file to Crown Prosecution Service after an investigation into postal voting irregularities in Bradford at the local elections in 2005. The Times had reported in April 2005 that Jamshed Khan, then a Conservative councillor in Bradford, had 13 voters registered at his home, all of whom had applied for postal votes.
5 January 2007 West Midlands police arrested five more people in a long running investigation into electoral fraud at the 2005 local elections in Birmingham.
18 January 2007 The Committee on Standards in Public Life published its review of the Electoral Commission and called for radical reforms to the Commission to refocus its mandate on two priorities: the integrity of the electoral administration system and the regulation of political party funding. The Committee commented that information about the extent of investigation and cases of electoral fraud was not collected centrally and published in its review tables giving examples of cases of electoral fraud investigated by the police between 2001 and 2006.
23 January 2007 The Burnley Express reported that Steven Smith was standing as a candidate in the Stoneyholme with Daneshouse by-election, the seat left vacant by Mozaquir Ali who was jailed for 18 months for election fraud in November 2006. Smith had only just come to the end of a 5 year ban on standing for public office following his conviction for election fraud in 2001; he had admitted allowing false nominations when he was organiser for the Burnley branch of the British National Party.
26 February 2007 An Opposition Day debate was held on the electoral system. The Shadow Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, Oliver Heald MP, opened the debate and said that ‘since coming to office Labour has tinkered with the electoral system and repeatedly ignored cross-party warnings, and has thereby damaged the integrity of our electoral system.’ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, Bridget Prentice, stressed that new measures had been put in place to tighten the security of postal voting and that ‘these new measures demonstrate that we have taken every allegation of electoral fraud seriously and that we are absolutely determined to prevent any future incidents of fraud, as far as we can, while ensuring that the anti-fraud measures are proportionate to the scale of the problem.’
8 March 2007 The Guardian reported that a delegation from a committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly visited the UK to look into election irregularities and met with the Minister, Bridget Prentice; the Electoral Commission; police who had been involved in investigating electoral fraud and Richard Mawrey QC. The delegation will make its report to the Committee by the end of March and recommendations will then be put to the full Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly.
13 March 2007 Burnley Liberal Democrat councillor, Manzur Hussain, who was jailed for election fraud in November 2006, failed in his appeal against his conviction.
16 March 2007 The Birmingham Evening Post reported that the applications for postal ballots were 30,000 less than in 2004. By the beginning of March 2007 there were 43,000 on the postal voting register compared to 60,000 in 2006 triggering claims that the new provisions requiring the provision of personal identifiers were deterring possible fraudsters.
4 April 2007 The Evening Standard reported the arrest of a man in connection with allegations of postal vote fraud at the 2006 local elections in Tower Hamlets.
20 April 2007 The BBC reported that there had been a large increase in applications for postal votes and that there was concern about the software to be used in the checking of signatures of those voting by postal ballot. The Electoral Administration Act 2006 requires those voting by post to supply their date of birth and signature when they apply for a postal ballot and to supply the same personal identifiers when they complete the ballot so that these can be checked against the originals. The measures were designed to increase the security of the voting system. Electoral administrators are required to check at least 20% of the postal ballot papers and most councils were intending to do this electronically at the local elections.
23 April 2007 Iftkhar Hussain appeared in court charged with two counts of personation at the local elections in May 2006 in the Foleshill ward in Coventry.
26 April 2007 An Oldham Liberal Democrat councillor, Khurshid Ahmed, was arrested on suspicion of electoral fraud relating to applications for postal votes. Ahmed was released on bail and contested his ward in the May local elections.
28 April 2007 The West Midlands police launched a campaign to stamp out election fraud. Hundreds of leaflets warning of the consequences and penalties if postal votes are misused will be handed out in the run up to the council elections on 3 May 2007. The leaflets urged voters to:
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Look after your vote
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Make sure your postal vote arrives safely – don’t give it to anybody else
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Do not let anybody steal your vote
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If you commit election fraud the consequences are the same as any other offence – a criminal conviction.
Sam Younger, chairman of the Electoral Commission, said in an interview in the Times that there was a need for greater security at the ballot box after the new safeguards for those voting by post; voters should have to produce a passport, driving licence or other photo ID at polling booths, or an electoral identity card.
29 April 2007 The Sunday Times reported that Labour party canvassers in Leeds were handling postal ballot papers in contravention of the code of conduct on handling postal votes drawn up by the Electoral Commission and which all the three major political parties had agreed should be observed.
2 May 2007 The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs, Bridget Prentice, told Radio 4’s Today programme that the new postal ballot checks in which voters had to provide a signature and date of birth had made the postal voting system as secure as possible. On the same programme Richard Price QC called for individual registration to combat the possibility of electoral fraud.
5 May 2007 The Yorkshire Post reported allegations of electoral fraud in Leeds and Bradford. In Leeds there were concerns about the number of rejected postal ballot papers and in Bradford there were eight complaints about electoral irregularities.
Police are investigating alleged voting fraud in the Foleshill ward in Coventry after being called to a polling station on 3 May 2007.
14 May 2007 The Liberal Democrats in Nottingham alleged that there was electoral fraud in the Berridge ward at the local elections on 3 May 2007 and have passed evidence of personation to the police.
14 May 2007 A Respect party candidate, Sajid Mehmood, who stood for election in the Park ward of Halifax in the local elections of 3 May 2007, was arrested after it was discovered that he was not qualified to stand as a candidate. The Returning Officer wrote to candidates who also stood for election in the ward to inform them that Mr Mehmood was disqualified from being a candidate because he had been convicted of an offence for which he received a term of imprisonment between 2003 and 2005. The other parties are considering whether to challenge the election result.
8 July 2007 The Sunday Mercury reported that Iftkhar Hussain is set to stand trial in August. He is charged with two counts of personation over the votes of local people alleged to have been in Pakistan. It was also reported that West Midlands Police are currently working on three other separate inquiries into alleged electoral fraud, which relate to the 2005 and 2006 local elections in Birmingham.
20 July 2007 The by-election in Ealing Southall was overshadowed by a police inquiry into alleged postal vote fraud. The Director of Public Prosecutions has also been asked to probe claims that the Liberal Democrats claimed that the Labour candidate, Virendra Shar-ma, was 72 (he is 60) in their election leaflets.
29 July 2007 Mohammed Khan, of Small Heath, Birmingham, a Liberal Democrat candidate who was arrested last April on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud the election process, is to face charges. His wife, Naseem Akhtar was also arrested in April after the discovery of a number of postal votes at a second address. In January 2007 five other people were arrested as part of the same inquiry.
1 August 2007 An election court is to convene in Birmingham, for the second time in two years, to consider allegations of ‘dirty tricks’ at a city council poll. A High Court judge will sit in October to consider claims that Liberal Democrat candidate Saeed Aehmed was beaten by Labour’s Muhammed Afzal in Aston as the result of a smear campaign.
3 October 2007 Muhammed Afzal is accused of publishing false statements about the personal character of Liberal Democrat candidate Saeed Aehmed in the local elections in the 2007. A High Court hearing will begin on 31 October 2007. All of the allegations are denied by Councillor Afzal.
15 October 2007 In Oldham Adeel Hanif pleaded guilty to the offence of personation at Minshull Street Crown Court. Hanif was sentenced to three months in jail.
19 October 2007 Three Labour officials were accused of directing ballot papers to more than 50 core addresses in an attempt to rig a local election. Mohammed Choudhary, a former Mayor of Peterborough, along with Maqbool Hussein and Tariq Mahmood were on trial at Kings Lynn Crown Court.
21 October 2007 The Independent on Sunday reported that seven people have been charged with postal ballot fraud at the last general election and face charges of conspiracy to defraud Bradford’s returning officer in 2005. They are to appear before Bradford Magistrates Court on 14 November.
1 November 2007 Liberal Deocrats seeking to overturn the Aston ward result in the 2007 Birmingham Council elections suffered a blow yesterday when a judge ruled a central part of their case was inadmissible. Lawyers representing Liberal Democrat candidate, Saeed Aehme, who lost in May 2007 to Labour’s Muhammed Afzal, wanted to raise fresh evidence about allegations of corruption at Aston during the 2004 elections. On 31 October 2007 a new election court began sitting in Birmingham to consider claims that Councillor Afzal and his supporters conducted a character assassination campaign in Aston against Saeed Aehmed during the run-up to the 2007 council elections.
1 November 2007 A judge ordered the city’s Liberal Democrats to give a full explanation as to why it took them five months to produce evidence of alleged “dirty tricks” in Birmingham Council elections in May 2007.
2 November 2007 A leading Asian councillor, Muhamad Afzal, was alleged to have cheated his way back on Birmingham council by spreading rumours on election day in 2007 that his opponent had been arrested for fraud, a court was told yesterday. The hearing continues.
2 November 2007 A smear campaign to stop a Liberal Democrat candidate from being elected to Birmingham City Council was underpinned by corruption within the highest reaches of the West Midlands Labour Party, an election court was told yesterday. The Birmingham Post reported that it is claimed that Labour officials operated an “institutional policy” of inventing false allegations as a device to justify sacking election candidates properly selected by local ward parties but who fell out of favour with the regional party. The allegation was put forward on the second day of a trial to consider claims that Labour councillor Muhammed Afzal was unfairly elected at this year’s city council elections after he and his supporters had allegedly spread false claims about the conduct and character of Liberal Democrat candidate Saeed Ahmed. Councillor Afzal and his supporters are alleged to have committed 14 illegal practices.
6 November 2007 Allegations that corruption in the West Midlands Labour Party lay behind the deselection of Birmingham Council candidates were described at the election court as ‘absurd’.
12 November 2007 The Times reported that a Conservative Parliamentary candidate, Haroon Rashid, and two former Conservative councillors, Jamshed Khan and Reis Khan, would appear in court this week with four other men accused of electoral fraud following police investigations into the misuse of postal ballots in Bradford during the 2005 general election.
At the election court in Birmingham claims that witnesses were too frightened to give evidence are to be investigated by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
16 November 2007 Six men, including two former Conservative councillors, appeared in court in Bradford charged with vote-rigging in the run-up to the 2005 General Election. A seventh man also charged was not in court for the brief hearing. The defendants face charges that ‘they conspired together, and with others unknown, to defraud the electoral registration officer of Bradford City Council by dishonestly causing or permitting to be submitted to that officer, falsely completed applications to vote by post between January 1 2002 and May 6 2005’.
23 November 2007 More than 100 people have given evidence at Kings Lynn Crown Court over the past five weeks in the trial of three Labour party members. Former Mayor Mohammed Choudhary, Maqbool Hussain and Tariq Mahmood denied a number of charges, including conspiracy to defraud and forgery in relation to the local elections in June 2004. It is alleged that the men “hijacked“ ballot papers and directed them to more than 50 core addresses, in an attempt to rig the election to get Mr Choudhary and Mr Hussein elected in the Central ward. The prosecution said that the victims of the fraud fell into two categories; those who had not seen their ballot papers and those who had handed over their papers to someone else. Prosecutor Anthony Leonard QC told the jury that the sheer number of votes cast in the Central ward, 2,900, was “out of all proportion” with the rest of the city. The closest other ward was West, with 1,182. The trial continues.
1 December 2007 The Director of Public Prosecutions is to examine allegations of witness ‘nobbling’ in the election court in Birmingham. One witness appeared to lose his voice whilst giving evidence, one has gone into hiding and another told the judge that he had been warned against giving evidence and feared for the safety of his family. A Liberal Democrat witness stayed away after his car was torched and another potential witness appeared to be no longer in Birmingham.
21 December 2007 The prosecution case against a former Peterborough mayor accused of vote rigging has finished. Handwriting experts and more than 100 witnesses have been called. The prosecution alleged that Mohammed Choudhary, Maqbool Hussain and Tariq Mahmood abused the voting system by manipulating it to their advantage. Jurors will return to the court on January 7, when the defence case opens.
5 January 2008 Liberal Democrat, Saeed Aehmed, who was seeking a seat in last year’s local elections in Birmingham, yesterday admitted changing his name so he would appear above a political rival, Labour candidate Muhammad Afzal, on a ballot paper. Mr Aehmed made the admission at the election court in Birmingham in which he claimed Mr Afzal, who won the seat, conducted a smear campaign against him rendering the election void.
7 January 2008 Sajjid Mehmood, who was due to be sentenced later this month for election fraud, died. Mr Mehmood admitted making a false statement on nomination papers when standing in the 2007 Calderdale Council elections for the Respect Party. He had failed to declare time he had spent in jail; three months in 2003 for possession of heroin and cocaine, and four months in 2004 and 2005, both for driving offences.
In response to a Parliamentary question about the implementation of the provisions in the Electoral Administration Act 2006 for voters to sign for ballot papers in polling stations, the Minister of State, Bridget Prentice, said that primary legislation which would set out a clear requirement would be brought forward when parliamentary time allowed.
8 January 2008 A Birmingham man voted using the identities of two other people, who were not in the UK at the time of the election, in order to help his cousin win a local election in the Foleshill ward in Coventry, Birmingham Crown Court heard yesterday. Iftikhar Hussain has denied two charges of personation in the names of Abdul Khaliq and Mukhtar Hussain. Conservative candidate Altaf Adalat won the Coventry ward by six votes against his labour opponent, following the alleged fraud, in May 2006.
The Government announced that it was not planning to require 100% checking of the personal identifiers on returned postal votes at the elections scheduled for May 2008. Replying to a Parliamentary Question the Minister of State, Bridget Prentice, said that the Government was committed to the principle that 100% of returned postal votes should be checked but that it agreed with the Electoral Commission that no changes to the legislation should be contemplated for implementation before 31 May 2008.
12 January 2008 Iftikahar Hussain was found guilty of rigging votes in the Foleshill ward in Coventry. The judge, Richard Griffith-Jones, said he felt ‘disquiet’ about the ease with which election fraud could be committed. He said security at polling stations should be stepped up and asked for his remarks to be passed on to politicians and the Electoral Commission. Sentencing will take place on 1 February 2008.
16 January 2008 Conservative council leader Ken Taylor last night refused to speculate if there was a mastermind behind the Foleshill election fraud. He was challenged in the wake of a court case in which the cousin of a winning Tory council candidate was convicted of casting two false votes. Iftikhar Hussain was described by Judge Richard Griffith-Jones as “very probably a foot soldier” in the deception
20 January 2008 A Liberal Democrat local election candidate, Mohammed Khan, arrested in a major electoral fraud inquiry, is to be charged on 11 separate counts of forgery. His wife, Naseem Aktar, was also arrested following the discovery of a number of postal voting forms at an address in Bordesley Green. The ward was at the centre of a vote-rigging scandal in 2004. Mr Khan is one of several individuals at the centre of a lengthy investigation into alleged postal vote fraud during the 2006 local council elections in Birmingham. Five other people have been arrested as part of the same enquiry.
22 January 2008 The opinion of the rapporteurs of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly’s Monitoring Committee’s fact finding visit in February 2007 was published.123 The rapporteurs found that:
…it is clear that the electoral system in Great Britain is open to electoral fraud. This vulnerability is mainly the result of the, rather arcane, system of voter registration without personal identifiers. It was exacerbated by the introduction of postal voting on demand, especially under the arrangements as existed before the changes in the electoral code in 2006. The 2006 changes to the electoral code enhanced the security of the postal voting arrangements, but other shortcomings and vulnerabilities remain. Together with numerous British experts we strongly recommend to eliminate those.
However the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly’s Monitoring Committee decided not to put in place a full monitoring procedure at the moment:
Despite the vulnerabilities in the electoral system, there is no doubt that elections in the United Kingdom are conducted democratically and represent the free expression of the will of the people of the United Kingdom. On these grounds, it can not be argued that the United Kingdom has fallen short on honouring its democratic commitments to the Council of Europe and we can therefore not recommend opening a monitoring procedure with respect to the United Kingdom.
It should be stressed however that the United Kingdom delivers elections despite the vulnerabilities in its electoral system. These vulnerabilities could easily affect the overall democratic nature of future elections in Great Britain. The Monitoring Committee should, in its periodic reports on the honouring of commitments by member states, pay special attention to electoral issues in the United Kingdom and, if the vulnerabilities noted are found to undermine the overall democratic nature of future elections in Great Britain, apply to initiate a Monitoring procedure with respect to the United Kingdom.
10 February 2008 The Labour Party has challenged the Conservative victory in the Central ward of Slough in May 2007, alleging postal vote fraud; more than half the Conservative votes were by post. Richard Mawrey QC is hearing the election petition.
21 February 2008 Mohammed Choudhary, Maqbool Hussain and Tariq Mahmood were found guilty of forgery at King’s Lynn Crown Court after vote-rigging at the local elections in Peterborough in 2004. The judge told them to expect custodial sentences. Detective Inspector Ian Tandy who led the investigation said that it had been ‘a long and complex investigation into a systematic and organised campaign of electoral fraud.’
18 March 2008 Richard Mawrey QC found Conservative councillor Eshaq Khan guilty of corrupt and illegal practices at the election court in Slough. Khan’s election was declared void and he was banned from holding office for five years after being found guilty of vote rigging by using postal ballots in the names of hundreds of ‘ghost voters’. Mawrey noted in his judgement that ‘there is no reason to suppose that this is an isolated incident. Roll-stuffing [packing the electoral roll with fictitious voters] is childishly simple to commit and very difficult to detect. To ignore the probability that it is widespread, particularly in local elections, is a policy that even an ostrich would despise.’
In the wake of the case the Electoral Commission again called for the introduction of individual registration to strengthen the security of postal voting. Sir Christopher Kelly, Chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, said that the case "highlights the need for fundamental changes to our electoral system … electoral fraud is not a trivial matter - it is an affront to the democratic principle of one person one vote. Left unchecked it will eventually undermine trust and confidence in the democratic process and by implication the electorate's consent to the outcome of elections. This case has shown that the safeguards introduced by the government to combat electoral fraud particularly in relation to postal voting are easily bypassed because of the fundamental weaknesses in the current system of electoral registration."
2 April 2008 At the end of an election petition hearing in Birmingham, Timothy Staker QC, sitting as the Elections Commissioner, dismissed the petition brought by Saeed Aehmed, the Liberal Democrat candidate at the local election in Aston in 2007. Aehmed had alleged that he lost the election because of a smear campaign by Labour councillor Muhammed Afzal.
8 April 2008 The Peterborough Evening Telegraph reported that Mohammed Choudhary, Maqbool Hussain and Tariq Mahmood, who had been found guilty of forgery at King’s Lynn Crown Court after vote-rigging at the local elections in Peterborough in 2004, had received prison sentences. Tariq Mahmood, who was described as the ‘spider at the centre of the web’ was jailed for 15 months; Maqbool Hussain for 3 months and Mohammed Choudhary for 9 months.
The South Wales Echo reported that a couple had been arrested on suspicion of attempted electoral fraud after allegedly trying to register to vote in an area where they were not entitled.
20 April 2008 Liberal Democrat Mohammed Anzal Anwar is being investigated by police after it was discovered that 27 voters were registered at his home address in Nelson, Lancashire. Labour Party officials asked the police to investigate amid claims that not all the residents living at Mr Anwar’s home were entitled to vote. The Labour candidate for the local council election in Pendle is also subject to a police investigation; Mohammed Tariq has been accused of having 5 people registered to vote at his home who are also registered at properties elsewhere in Nelson. The Express on Sunday reported that the Liberal Democrat peer, Lord Greaves, who is also a Pendle borough councillor, believed that there was postal vote fraud in the run up to the local elections. Lord Greaves said: ‘They are getting people to sign who have little or no idea what it is all about. They get landlords to force tenants to sign. They make women sign for postal votes whether they wish to do so or not. They steal the votes of elderly people who have little English. We all know what will happen next. When these votes are sent out in the post the Labour Party operatives and friends of the candidate will call and collect them from voters. It’s called ‘chasing the postman’ and it too often involves intimidation, which is an electoral offence.’
22 April 2008 The Peterborough Evening Telegraph reported that an unprecedented police operation would take place on polling day for the local elections in Peterborough following the recent sentencing of three former Labour Party members for vote rigging in the 2004 election.
25 April 2008 A Conservative, Norman Whitlock, was arrested following allegations that he had forged signatures on the nomination papers of candidate Simon Bright for the Swansea council election.
28 April 2008 The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust published a report, Purity of elections in the UK: causes for concern. The report had been commissioned to ‘review the extent to which there is evidence of electoral principles and processes being undermined in the UK’. See Section G above for further details of the report.
29 April 2008 Michael Wills, Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, was questioned about electoral fraud at an evidence session held by the Public Administration Select Committee as part of its enquiry. In response to a question suggesting that the Government was resisting the introduction of individual registration he said:
Of course there have been instances of fraud and they have to be tackled and they will be tackled. We face as a democracy certain challenges and we have to find our way through them. Participation is declining. I think it is right that the Department should look for ways of increasing participation in our elections. Postal votes is one of them. If the system is opening itself up to fraud—and there have been cases of it—we have to close those processes which do render it open to fraud. We are looking at the question of individual voter registration. We are not resisting it, but we have to be sure that any changes we make do not worsen the problem in another area.
The Committee’s chairman, Tony Wright, suggested that almost all the cases of electoral abuse involved minority communities and that ‘we should not be mealy mouthed about it. It is importing cultural practices from one place to another. If we are serious about Britishness, surely one of the things we have to be serious about is telling everybody who lives here about the integrity of democratic politics.’
2 May 2008 Mohammed Chaudhary Saghir, a former Conservative councillor, was arrested in Halifax in connection with alleged false applications for proxy votes in the Calderdale Council elections.
10 May 2008 West Midlands police have begun an investigation into allegations of postal vote fraud in the Aston ward in last week’s local elections. There have also been allegations that voters were intimidated; that candidates handled postal ballot papers and that voters were impersonated.
5 June 2008 The West Midlands police are also investigating alleged vote rigging at the local elections in Walsall. The Labour candidate for Palfrey, Allah Ditta, alleged that there were 60 false voter registrations in Palfrey.
10 June 2008 Mohammed Chaudhary Saghir has been formally reported to the Crown Prosecution Service in relation to five allegations of making false statements to obtain proxy votes for the local elections in Calderdale on 1May 2008."
Some of the Labour Party's supporters will fight very very dirty at the General Election, should Gordon Brown dare to allow us one and electoral fraud will be a live issue.
