Poll Fraud

Judge lambasts postal ballot rules as Labour 6 convicted of poll fraud. By Nick Britten and George Jones

A judge launched a blistering attack on the postal voting system yesterday and the Government's failure to recognise and tackle widespread corruption.

Finding six Labour councillors guilty of electoral fraud at last year's council election in two Birmingham wards, he said the episode would "disgrace a banana republic".

Richard Mawrey, QC, sitting as a High Court judge, said the councillors were responsible for a "massive, systematic and organised fraud" that was supported by the local Labour Party.

He attacked ministers who dismissed warnings about vote rigging in the forthcoming general election as "scaremongering" and said the system that Tony Blair was encouraging the public to use was "hopelessly insecure".

"There are no systems to deal realistically with fraud and there never have been," he said. "Until there are, fraud will continue unabated".

Mr Mawley ordered a re-election in the two wards, Aston and Bordesley Green, and banned the six councillors from standing.

The Labour Party immediately said it was suspending them and the councillors were also ordered to pay costs, estimated at £500,000.

The ruling will be a setback to the Government as it tries to persuade the public that postal voting is a safe alternative to the ballot box. Ministers are expecting a record number of applications for the general election.
In Aston, the three Labour candidates set up a "vote-rigging factory" in a disused warehouse, the judge heard. There they doctored hundreds, possibly thousands, of votes, ensuring that they were elected.
The fraud principally involved theft by applying for ballot papers in names taken from the electoral role and filling them in. Ballots were intercepted and altered.

Both wards were targets because of their strong Muslim links and Labour feared that its vote would collapse because of opposition to the war in Iraq.

Mr Mawrey said the cheating was not confined to the two wards but was a tactic Labour used across the city.

Safeguards to protect voters were useless. Elections officers had no means of checking the validity of the signature on an application form or on a postal ballot; nor were they required to do so.

The judge said the returning officer, Lin Homer, had "thrown the rule book out of the window" in an effort to process a three-fold increase in postal vote applications in the run-up to the poll.

Mr Mawrey said: "Postal ballot packages are sent out by ordinary mail in clearly identifiable envelopes. Short of writing 'Steal Me' on the envelopes, it is hard to see what more could be done to ensure their coming into the wrong hands."

Mr Mawrey said the Government was failing to tackle the problem, or even accept that there was one.

He referred to a Government statement which said that there were no plans to change the postal voting system and that procedures for dealing with allegations of electoral fraud were working.

"Anybody who has sat through the case and listened to evidence of electoral fraud that would disgrace a banana republic would find this statement surprising," he said.

"To assert that 'the systems already in place to deal with the allegations of electoral fraud are clearly working' indicates a state not simply of complacency but of denial."
He also criticised West Midlands police, who were given a list of allegations by the Liberal Democrats during the election campaign.
He said the police showed an "Olympian detachment" to investigating them.
Outside the hearing at the Birmingham and Midlands Institute, the Aston councillors were jeered by jubilant Liberal Democrats, who brought the petition against them under the Representation of the People Act 1983, and the pro-Kashmir People's Justice Party, which brought the Bordesley Green petition.
The councillors maintained their innocence and said the judgment was a "dark day for democracy".
John Hemming, the leader of the Liberal Democrat group and deputy leader of Birmingham council, said: "We have been vindicated in bringing this action and hope that it serves to continue to highlight the blatant fraud going on not just in Birmingham but across the country."
The Electoral Reform Society said: "We accept postal voting as part of the modern electoral process but we believe that it must be managed in an efficient manner with little risk of fraud. Urgent action must be taken."
Mike Griffiths, the head of Labour's national organisation committee, said the party would instigate a "vigorous disciplinary process" against the councillors.

Downing Street sought to play down the implications of the Birmingham votes fraud. It said that the Government was working with the Electoral Commission, the police and the political parties to strengthen the system and ensure that fraud was prosecuted.