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Postal Voting - an article by Jonathan Arnott
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In many of Labour’s safest seats, you would be forgiven for thinking that only parish council elections were taking place on May 5th. Gone are the huge swathes of red posters, and only those fortunate few see anything at all of the campaign of a government which takes its core support for granted.
The word ‘fortunate’ is perhaps a strange way to describe those who have been subjected to Labour’s bullying tactics. One UK Independence Party candidate, industriously door-knocking in an attempt to drum up support for the underdog, came face to face with an elderly lady. Having made the case for UKIP, our candidate was surprised to be told that Labour had arranged – in a clear breach of the Electoral Commission’s Code of Conduct – to go round and ‘help’ her fill in her ballot paper. We can never know what form that ‘help’ would have taken. Perhaps they would have allowed her privacy and then shown her which piece of paper to put into envelope B. Postal ballots do seem a little bit like Blue Peter at times. Perhaps they would have kept an eye on her to ensure that she was voting for Labour, or used scare tactics and intimidation.
I am quite a trusting sort of guy. I believe that it was the former, and that the local Labour Party would not stoop to intimidation in what is, after all, a safe seat. But members of the public will be concerned to hear about such visits. They may suspect impropriety. Of course, that’s why the Code of Conduct tell all political parties that they must do no such thing. Elections should be conducted transparently so that the public has confidence in the system. Apparently Labour believe themselves to be above the system.
The postal voting fiasco led to a UKIP candidate being offered two votes. He received a polling card for the election, then later was given a postal vote that he should not have received. An unscrupulous candidate might have voted twice.
A separate situation led to one candidate’s wife receiving no postal vote at all. After contacting Electoral Services three times without any luck, she went into the city to complain in person two days before polling day. The response was swift – after producing identification she was handed a postal vote over the counter.
The following day her postal vote arrived through the post. An unscrupulous candidate’s wife might have voted twice.
There are also widespread reports of students receiving two postal votes, one for their home address and the other for their term-time address.
It is time for us to show some integrity and ensure that such abuses of the system do not happen. We know that postal ballots increase turnout – but our democracy should not be sold, at any price. A good start would be limiting postal votes to those who give a valid reason for requiring one.
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