VOTE RIGGING
Below are 3 items from The Times which show the extent of the outright vote rigging now endemic in the UK. The Tories seem to have responded by trying to out vote rig Labour rather than demanding the return of the ballot box.
From The Times
March 19, 2008
State of denial allowed voting cheats to prosper
Dominic Kennedy
It is hardly as if he didn’t warn them. As Tony Blair shone his shoes before visiting the Queen to call the May 2005 general election, a judge planted a bombshell under Britain’s proud electoral system.
Richard Mawrey, QC, finally lost his temper with ministers’ arrogance as he ruled that Labour had organised a conspiracy across Birmingham to win the local elections by rigging postal votes. His trial found “fraud that would disgrace a banana republic”, while ministers were in “a state not simply of complacency but of denial”.
After The Times disclosed vote rigging in Yorkshire and the North West in the 2004 local elections, ministers dug in their heels. Chris Leslie, the Constitutional Affairs Minister, disregarded it all in the Commons as hearsay, rumour and misconceptions. The denial only ended when a Labour councillor in Jack Straw’s Blackburn constituency was jailed for voterigging. Mr Blair agreed to an electoral reform Bill.
Labour switched tactics, bringing in cosmetic changes in the Electoral Administration Act. In January investigators from the Council of Europe condemned British elections as “childishly simple” to rig.
The Conservatives have exploited the new rules eagerly, using technology to trick electors into sending their ballots to Tory-controlled addresses. The seats with most postal votes in the last general election showed bigger swings to the Conservatives. This conspiracy goes a lot wider than Birmingham, Slough or Labour.
From The Times
March 19, 2008
Army of ghost voters who won an election but wrecked career of Eshaq Khan
A Conservative councillor has been found guilty of corruption after a botched cover-up and now faces a police inquiry
Greg Hurst
When the Conservative candidate Eshaq Khan unexpectedly unseated a long-serving Labour councillor in local elections last May, it seemed to be the high point of a long career of public service.
He already held senior posts in charitable and cultural groups and was a respected figure in the tight-knit Kashmiri community in Slough, Berkshire, where he ran a carpet and furniture business.
But within days of his triumph, his victory began to unravel amid a welter of allegations of a crude campaign of vote-rigging and, ultimately, forgery and intimidation of a witness.
It ended in disgrace yesterday when Khan was found guilty at a special High Court election hearing in Slough council chamber of corrupt and illegal practices to secure his election. He was stripped of his seat and banned from standing for office for five years. He now faces a police inquiry.
Khan, 50, won his marginal seat in Central Ward after his team registered hundreds of “ghost voters” in the month before the election and cast votes using fraudulent postal ballots.
He and his team compounded the fraud with a botched cover-up that included poorly forged tenancy agreements and statements from bogus voters, and an attempt to intimidate a witness. Thames Valley Police said that it would widen its inquiry into the case in light of the judge’s accusations of perjury and attempts to pervert the court of justice by supporters of Khan.
Three people have been arrested in connection with the case. Police have interviewed another three. The Times understands that they include Khan and a leading figure in his campaign, Mohammed Basharat Khan.
The election team registered fictitious voters at derelict houses and claimed that as many as 12 voters were living at two-bedroom flats or three-bedroom houses. Khan beat Lydia Simmons, his Labour opponent, by 120 votes but Labour contested the result by bringing an election petition to overturn the result after almost 450 voters were added to the electoral register in the final weeks before the poll, almost all of whom voted by post for the Conservatives.
Labour succeeded in striking 145 “ghost voters” from the electoral roll. The judge accepted that the true figure was likely to run into hundreds.
Witnesses included a handwriting expert, Kim Hughes, who said that 198 of the postal ballot forms were filled in by Mohammed Basharat Khan, described by the judge as “a serial forger”, and another 79 were in the handwriting of the candidate.
Once Labour began to identify ghost voters, Khan and his team produced forged tenancy agreements. Ten of these were produced on the same computer. Khan’s team also produced 46 statements by individuals claiming that they lived at the disputed properties.
Two Polish women were accused of lying by Khan’s allies when they said that they knew nothing of the six and seven Kasmiri voters registered at each of their homes. One witness, Nighat Khan, who was due to give evidence that the five Kashmiris registered at her flat were fictitious, received a visit from a man claiming to be a lawyer. He produced a typed letter that he asked her to sign,saying that she would then not have to attend the hearing. The court received a letter allegedly from Ms Khan claiming that she was too ill to attend.
Khan will be forced to repay to Slough Borough Council all the expenses for council duties he claimed since his election and was told to pay aggravated legal costs, although local Conservatives said that some of these may be covered by insurance.
From The Times
March 19, 2008
Vote Rigging: a Banana Republic
The Government must cease its complacency over postal vote corruption
Four years ago, this newspaper uncovered widespread intimidation and postal voting fraud in local elections around the country. Ten months later, ruling on the scandal in Birmingham, Richard Mawrey, QC, presiding over an election court,found six Labour councillors guilty of corruption that would, he said, “disgrace a banana republic”. He declared that the Government's introduction of postal voting on demand was “an open invitation to fraud”. Yet the Government was reluctant to act. The reforms that it eventually made, after the 2005 general election, have now been shown to be utterly inadequate.
Eshaq Khan, a Conservative councillor in Slough, was found guilty yesterday of using bogus postal votes to beat his Labour rival. The 2006 introduction of a requirement for double signatures, one on the application for a postal ballot and another on the ballot itself, proved no deterrent to his creation of hundreds of fake voters. In his judgment yesterday, Mr Mawrey stated that “the opportunities for easy and effective fraud remain substantially as they were in 2005”. The deception was uncovered only because of the incompetence of those involved and the blatant nature of the frauds. The fake ballot papers had been filled out in the same handwriting, and more than half of the Tory votes had arrived by post.
Individual instances of tampering may sound ludicrous, but they are potentially lethal to democracy. Britain used to have one of the most robust, respected voting systems in the world. But in 2001 the Government abolished the requirement to show good cause for needing a postal vote, such as being abroad on business. Anyone could apply for a postal vote, to be sent to any address.
The aim was to raise voter turnout: but the method was reckless. The main victims of the policy have been Asian voters, particularly women, who have had their votes stolen by aspiring politicians who have predominantly been of Asian origin. Other law-abiding citizens have also found that their votes no longer count.
All three main parties have now been tainted by these corrupt practices. This should enable them to move beyond mudslinging, to agree that there must be far tighter controls. In Northern Ireland, postal votes are available only to the sick, infirm or those working abroad. All postal ballot papers are scanned in Northern Ireland to compare them with voters' signatures. This system provides a template for serious consideration by ministers.
The electoral register also needs an overhaul. It contains far too many “ghosts” who have died or gone abroad. The Electoral Commission has rightly called for individual registration to replace the current system, which expects householders to keep forms up to date.
The irony is that the bloated nature of the electoral register means that turnout has not actually been as low as politicians have thought - making their rush to loosen the rules look even more naive. Ministers must realise that high turnout is not always a measure of faith in politics, and must act to ensure that the result of the next general election is not open to question. The Council of Europe is already threatening to monitor British elections. It would be disgraceful if international observers felt the need to intervene to ensure that British elections are free and fair.
From The Times
March 19, 2008
State of denial allowed voting cheats to prosper
Dominic Kennedy
It is hardly as if he didn’t warn them. As Tony Blair shone his shoes before visiting the Queen to call the May 2005 general election, a judge planted a bombshell under Britain’s proud electoral system.
Richard Mawrey, QC, finally lost his temper with ministers’ arrogance as he ruled that Labour had organised a conspiracy across Birmingham to win the local elections by rigging postal votes. His trial found “fraud that would disgrace a banana republic”, while ministers were in “a state not simply of complacency but of denial”.
After The Times disclosed vote rigging in Yorkshire and the North West in the 2004 local elections, ministers dug in their heels. Chris Leslie, the Constitutional Affairs Minister, disregarded it all in the Commons as hearsay, rumour and misconceptions. The denial only ended when a Labour councillor in Jack Straw’s Blackburn constituency was jailed for voterigging. Mr Blair agreed to an electoral reform Bill.
Labour switched tactics, bringing in cosmetic changes in the Electoral Administration Act. In January investigators from the Council of Europe condemned British elections as “childishly simple” to rig.
The Conservatives have exploited the new rules eagerly, using technology to trick electors into sending their ballots to Tory-controlled addresses. The seats with most postal votes in the last general election showed bigger swings to the Conservatives. This conspiracy goes a lot wider than Birmingham, Slough or Labour.
From The Times
March 19, 2008
Army of ghost voters who won an election but wrecked career of Eshaq Khan
A Conservative councillor has been found guilty of corruption after a botched cover-up and now faces a police inquiry
Greg Hurst
When the Conservative candidate Eshaq Khan unexpectedly unseated a long-serving Labour councillor in local elections last May, it seemed to be the high point of a long career of public service.
He already held senior posts in charitable and cultural groups and was a respected figure in the tight-knit Kashmiri community in Slough, Berkshire, where he ran a carpet and furniture business.
But within days of his triumph, his victory began to unravel amid a welter of allegations of a crude campaign of vote-rigging and, ultimately, forgery and intimidation of a witness.
It ended in disgrace yesterday when Khan was found guilty at a special High Court election hearing in Slough council chamber of corrupt and illegal practices to secure his election. He was stripped of his seat and banned from standing for office for five years. He now faces a police inquiry.
Khan, 50, won his marginal seat in Central Ward after his team registered hundreds of “ghost voters” in the month before the election and cast votes using fraudulent postal ballots.
He and his team compounded the fraud with a botched cover-up that included poorly forged tenancy agreements and statements from bogus voters, and an attempt to intimidate a witness. Thames Valley Police said that it would widen its inquiry into the case in light of the judge’s accusations of perjury and attempts to pervert the court of justice by supporters of Khan.
Three people have been arrested in connection with the case. Police have interviewed another three. The Times understands that they include Khan and a leading figure in his campaign, Mohammed Basharat Khan.
The election team registered fictitious voters at derelict houses and claimed that as many as 12 voters were living at two-bedroom flats or three-bedroom houses. Khan beat Lydia Simmons, his Labour opponent, by 120 votes but Labour contested the result by bringing an election petition to overturn the result after almost 450 voters were added to the electoral register in the final weeks before the poll, almost all of whom voted by post for the Conservatives.
Labour succeeded in striking 145 “ghost voters” from the electoral roll. The judge accepted that the true figure was likely to run into hundreds.
Witnesses included a handwriting expert, Kim Hughes, who said that 198 of the postal ballot forms were filled in by Mohammed Basharat Khan, described by the judge as “a serial forger”, and another 79 were in the handwriting of the candidate.
Once Labour began to identify ghost voters, Khan and his team produced forged tenancy agreements. Ten of these were produced on the same computer. Khan’s team also produced 46 statements by individuals claiming that they lived at the disputed properties.
Two Polish women were accused of lying by Khan’s allies when they said that they knew nothing of the six and seven Kasmiri voters registered at each of their homes. One witness, Nighat Khan, who was due to give evidence that the five Kashmiris registered at her flat were fictitious, received a visit from a man claiming to be a lawyer. He produced a typed letter that he asked her to sign,saying that she would then not have to attend the hearing. The court received a letter allegedly from Ms Khan claiming that she was too ill to attend.
Khan will be forced to repay to Slough Borough Council all the expenses for council duties he claimed since his election and was told to pay aggravated legal costs, although local Conservatives said that some of these may be covered by insurance.
From The Times
March 19, 2008
Vote Rigging: a Banana Republic
The Government must cease its complacency over postal vote corruption
Four years ago, this newspaper uncovered widespread intimidation and postal voting fraud in local elections around the country. Ten months later, ruling on the scandal in Birmingham, Richard Mawrey, QC, presiding over an election court,found six Labour councillors guilty of corruption that would, he said, “disgrace a banana republic”. He declared that the Government's introduction of postal voting on demand was “an open invitation to fraud”. Yet the Government was reluctant to act. The reforms that it eventually made, after the 2005 general election, have now been shown to be utterly inadequate.
Eshaq Khan, a Conservative councillor in Slough, was found guilty yesterday of using bogus postal votes to beat his Labour rival. The 2006 introduction of a requirement for double signatures, one on the application for a postal ballot and another on the ballot itself, proved no deterrent to his creation of hundreds of fake voters. In his judgment yesterday, Mr Mawrey stated that “the opportunities for easy and effective fraud remain substantially as they were in 2005”. The deception was uncovered only because of the incompetence of those involved and the blatant nature of the frauds. The fake ballot papers had been filled out in the same handwriting, and more than half of the Tory votes had arrived by post.
Individual instances of tampering may sound ludicrous, but they are potentially lethal to democracy. Britain used to have one of the most robust, respected voting systems in the world. But in 2001 the Government abolished the requirement to show good cause for needing a postal vote, such as being abroad on business. Anyone could apply for a postal vote, to be sent to any address.
The aim was to raise voter turnout: but the method was reckless. The main victims of the policy have been Asian voters, particularly women, who have had their votes stolen by aspiring politicians who have predominantly been of Asian origin. Other law-abiding citizens have also found that their votes no longer count.
All three main parties have now been tainted by these corrupt practices. This should enable them to move beyond mudslinging, to agree that there must be far tighter controls. In Northern Ireland, postal votes are available only to the sick, infirm or those working abroad. All postal ballot papers are scanned in Northern Ireland to compare them with voters' signatures. This system provides a template for serious consideration by ministers.
The electoral register also needs an overhaul. It contains far too many “ghosts” who have died or gone abroad. The Electoral Commission has rightly called for individual registration to replace the current system, which expects householders to keep forms up to date.
The irony is that the bloated nature of the electoral register means that turnout has not actually been as low as politicians have thought - making their rush to loosen the rules look even more naive. Ministers must realise that high turnout is not always a measure of faith in politics, and must act to ensure that the result of the next general election is not open to question. The Council of Europe is already threatening to monitor British elections. It would be disgraceful if international observers felt the need to intervene to ensure that British elections are free and fair.
posted by erc @ 2:37 pm
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