Labour’s victory by just 683 votes over the Brexit Party in Peterborough was mired in controversy last week after The Mail on Sunday revealed claims that a convicted vote rigger was at the centre of the party’s campaign. Cambridgeshire Police have since revealed they are investigating five complaints of electoral malpractice, including bribery. Now election experts Democracy Volunteers have raised fresh concerns over the by-election.
Wow. Really, it’s time to cease the practice of the postal vote for starters. But does this mean another by-election, I wonder?
John Ault, director of the organisation, said he had seen people photographing their completed ballot papers in what he suggested could show they were fulfilling a ‘contract’ to prove how they had voted.
He told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I have observed many elections across Europe and only once in Kazakhstan many years ago did I see what I saw happen three times in Peterborough.
‘There are signs up warning you not to take photographs and these were not selfies celebrating having voted but people photographing their cross on the ballot paper.’
Which is very clearly against the rules. Whether he is right is another matter of course – it might just be for the purposes of celebration.
He added: ‘One can only speculate as to why some voters feel the need to do this, although this can, in some cases, point to a contract being fulfilled or an inducement having been given.
Well, yes. However, you would need evidence. This on its own isn’t that.
Democracy Volunteers sent a team of four experienced observers to observe 23 of the polling stations used in the by-election. They watched as about 700 of the 27,000 who voted at a polling station cast their vote and witnessed so-called ‘family voting’ – where more than one person goes into the same voting booth – in half of the stations.
Would this be FONAs?
The concerns come after this newspaper revealed Tory claims last week that Tariq Mahmood, a convicted vote rigger, had been involved in Labour’s winning campaign.
Again, evidence needed.
Three of the five complaints now being investigated by Cambridgeshire Police relate to postal voting.
This practice needs to stop, it is far to easily gamed.
I’ll be watching this one with interest.
I wonder if the non-labour voters could organise another MP withdrawal petition as was done for the previous Labour jailbird?
This kind of thing has gone on before and, in the past, I was quite shocked that nothing was done. Nowadays I’m not remotely surprised, so it will be a welcome change if something actually does happen.
Postal voting is an invitation to fraud. It should be restricted to people who physically are unable to get to the polling station. We’re becoming a third world nation.
Just before the Euro elections I received a second voting card, in the name of someone who had never lived at my address, and I live alone. I contacted the Electoral team at the council and informed them that no one of that name lived here, and they said the name would be struck from the register. However when I went to vote a few days later, I scrutinised the list upside down while the woman behind the desk looked for my name on it, and saw that the unknown name was still on the list next to mine. As far as I could see they hadn’t voted as the name hadn’t been crossed out. A few weeks later I received a letter saying the register had been updated and the name removed.
Now in this case I subsequently discovered what had happened – my neighbour had taken in a lodger and he had registered to vote, presumably online, but got the number of the house wrong, so was registered at the wrong address. So I’m guess it wasn’t fraudulent. And given I voted late, probably didn’t use his vote any way.
However, it seems that it would be incredibly easy to register online to vote just before a voting deadline, in multiple locations and multiple IDs, turn up at the correct voting stations, give your name and address in that location (for the Euros at least no ID or voting card was needed, I checked), vote, and disappear. As long as you chose locations with different polling stations so you didn’t turn up multiple times at the same one and possibly get clocked, you could vote many times. Even if the householders inform the authorities (as I did) the system moves too slowly to get the name off the register before the actual poll day. Afterwards the names might be removed, but its too late by then. One person could vote once at every polling station in an area – that could be dozens of votes. A hundred people doing that equals thousands of votes. If you add in all the different spellings of Mohammed, the possibilities are endless……………..
Nothing, of course happened but those who didn’t do it don’t appear to be terribly concerned about how blatantly they didn’t do it.
As has been commented on a number of blogs, the left – lets call them that for the sake of argument. I’m not sure if its the correct label these day but we know who they are – think they have won and can do essentially whatever they please.
The electoral process is just another tool to be abused on the road to nirvana.
However, if Brexit did show one thing, it was that this road is not as straight or as free of potholes as the above mentioned left have always assumed.
I’d be very interested to see what a PROPER investigation would reveal and I’m thinking that such an invetigation – maybe not this specific instance – might be getting closer. I don’t think the political structure will – can – go back to what it was. Maybe some other cosy political class consensus will arise, but even if that is the case, some vestiges of the current political class will have to be thrown under the bus if the plebs are to be deceived.
As I recall the postal vote was available only to those unable to attend a polling station through illness/infirmity or absence abroad on government (military & civil service) or export business.
Furthermore until the late 90s I think (1997 coincidence?) there was always a uniformed police constable in attendance at every polling station and was therefore on hand to prevent at least some of the bad practices mentioned above.