And another thing…

I don’t agree with postal voting, but thats just my opinion – if you can’t be bothered to go out to a polling booth, you don’t deserve to vote (unless there are real reasons that you can’t such as military duty, disability etc)

Tom,

Undoubtedly you are right and I am not suggesting that this is happening in Glasgow North East which Labour will in comfortably. However, the fact remains that the current postal ballot systems and validation procedures are so inherently weak that the opportunity for fraud is very significant.

Just so that I’m sure, can you run that past me again?

Happt to help, Pam: In by-elections, all the parties push postal votes. Therefore, in by-elections, the number of postal votes goes up very significantly.

I believe in postal voting.

I vote for all my wives and daughters and they’re extremely grateful not to have to go out in the cold.

You have been doing a lot of these posts recently.

By that, I mean posts that might suggest you are as innocent as a dove, but not necessarily as wise as a serpent.

You surely remember that a senior judge branded postal voting worthy of a Banana Republic, after Labour supporters were found guilty of massive electoral fraud?

Let me jog your memory:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/apr/05/politics.localgovernment

And yes, well, bugger me, the Tories are at it too:

http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/local/localbrad/4734067.Four_are_accused_of_postal_vote_plot/

According to the Telegraph and Argus:

Four Conservative party supporters from Bradford tried to rig the voting system in the run-up to a General Election in a plot to “harvest” postal votes, a court heard today.

Mohammed Sultan, Mohammed Rafiq, Reis Khan and Jamshed Khan sent off for postal voting applications under false names or had legitimate applications re-directed to them, Leeds Crown Court heard.

Bugger me, there’s another surprise.

However, postal voting fraud is not the unique preserve of the Asian Community.

Good old “moral compass” New Labour got mixed up in this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/labour/5179212/Labour-ballot-box-tampering-row-deepens.html

“An investigation was launched by Labour’s general secretary, Ray Collins, as it emerged that the box, which had been stored in a cupboard at Labour headquarters in Victoria Street, London, had been broken into and papers inside had been destroyed.”

I initially thought the Glenrothes result was just a cock-up, but now I am not so sure.

I am wearing my tin hat with pride, but at least my head is not buried up(abrupt ending of post)

The paranoia of the tin foil hat brigade is fuelled by the fact that we have had a 5 month gap between two by-elections caused by resignations that occured only a couple of weeks apart.

Why could Norwich North be held in June when Glasgow North East had to be deferred till November if there wasn’t a push by Labour to register voters for postal ballots in Glasgow, (having no need to wait in Norwich as it was written off as a loss already)?

This by-election should have been in June to stop the rumours that will now hang around for years.

Are we not allowed to be the tineiest bit suspicious, given:

1. The electoral records went missing in Glentrothes amidst Labour’s surprise victory.

2. The Georgia Gould affair – when the ballot box was tampered with in internal Labour elections

3. Those guys in Birmingham were done for ballot rigging on Labour’s behalf

Ballot-rigging – is the crime-de-choice of the Labour minded person n’est pas?

Although….. Gordon himself prefers to dodge elections and referendums altogether – nothing must stop the dictatorship………

The Norwich North by-election was not in June, it was on 23 July – right in the middle of the Glasgow Fair fortnight. The nats pretended to have a fit last year when the Glasgow East by-election was held during this holiday. And why, pray tell, does a four-month delay give only Labour a chance to get people signed up for postal votes? The nats hav been working in the seat for the same length of time as us, so there’s no in-built advantage to Labour in any delay.

Has anyone seen the voters register from Glenrothes yet? It’s still missing I believe.

http://www.fifetoday.co.uk/glenrothes/Row-over-missing-Glenrothes-byelection.4941904.jp

Personally, I would ask for the UN to monitor the vote, then ask for a run off because the incumbant had to resign because he was a crook, then agree that the “right” candidate, although dodgy, can run the place until we can find someone better.

Just like we did in Afghanistan, in fact.

I agree that it is outrageous that the SNP-controlled local authority in Glenrothes lost the marked register. Maybe they’ll blame the court system, you know, the one responsible to the SNP justice minister.

Where’s a postal strike when we need one?

On a serious note, do your readers know that EVERY vote is logged against the name and address of the voter?

It is simplicity itself to find out what you voted. Every voting slip has a unique number and that number is logged against your name and address when you vote.

Not a lot of people know that

“Not a lot of people know that”. Yeah, because it’s b******t. The serial numbers only appear on the counterfoil retained by the polling clerk, as a record of who voted. There are no serial numbers on the ballot papers.

Ok, taking off my tin hat for a moment, is there a mechanism for challenging a by-election result in the event of an unusual result with a high proportion of postal votes? Can these votes be traced?

Shows how little you know, on a postal vote there is not only a number but a bar code so that it can be read. The electoral commission will confirm that all votes can be allocated to a voter if a judge approves so that electoral fraud can be tracked.

Why on earth would you challenge a result because of the number of postal ballots? The nats like to disparage the Glenrothes result, not because of the number of postal ballots, but because Labour won. What about Crewe? What about Norwich North? Postal ballots jumped there, too. Maybe those results should be challenged as well? No? Oh, of course – Labour lost those, didn’t we, so those results are valid…

Pete-s and Old Holborn – Well, alright then… (takes huff). But if it’s as easy as you claim to identify votes, why has this never happened?

Postal Vote = Labour Fraud

Actually Tom, every voting slip has a serial number.

Check it out next time. It takes a high court judge to release the sealed registers mind, but hey, it’s almost democracy, innit?

On this issue of “electoral fraud”. Apart from Northern Ireland, we don’t require any identification to vote in person. So you could just turn up at a polling station at 7.00am, claim to be someone else and not be challenged to prove it.

How is that not open to abuse?

It’s built into the law of this country, all votes have to be allocated to a unique person. Removal of the registration code makes the vote invalid. The votes have to be kept by the council for a minimum of 10 years. I had a long talk with the electoral commission to find out how our electoral system works.

Hm. Postal votes are open to fraud everywhere by anyone and it has certainly happened in Britain – see the examples above

I’d be inclined to believe that Labour isn’t involved in any large-scale fraud, not because of any innate virtue but simply because it seems so unlikely they would get away with it. Maybe the Glenrothes records will turn up and prove me wrong but I doubt it.

The Scottish Euro election figures for the small parties are interesting –

British National Party 27,174 2.46%
Socialist Labour Party 22,135 2.00%
Christian Party – Christian Peoples Alliance 16,738 1.52%
Scottish Socialist Party 10,404 0.94%
Independent – Duncan Robertson 10,189 0.92%
No2EU 9,693 0.88%
Jury Team 6,257 0.57%

Add UKIP’s 5.2% and the Greens 7.3% gives us (I think) 21.7% – it could be that in the future, and in Springburn just now, ‘minorities’ will go to maybe 25% of the total. We’ll see what tomorrow brings but I wonder of Scotland’s political future is becoming a 30% future, one in which the ‘dominant’ party is only voted for by about a third of the people.

Re the BNP, I wonder if anyone else suspects they are being talked up in the media as possibly finishing 3rd so we can all heave a sigh of relief when they ‘only;’ save their deposit.

For those who haven’t seen it, the Guardian web site has a good video piece by the normally insufferable John Harris (presumably not related to Tom Harris); highlights include (a) a street bollocking for the BNP; a spirited and impressive performance from the Tory; (c) Tommy Sheridan snarling at Harris as the latter scores.

Tom. It does happen. Do you really think a government that knows exactly what we eat and drink (it accessed the Tesco loyalty card data recently), what we say on the phone, the internet sites we visit, what we earn, our genetic make up, watches us on CCTV all day wouldn’t know what we vote?

That was why there was such a fuss when the registers went missing from Glenrothes. It tells anyone who is entitled to know who voted what. Or not as the case may be. By coincidence, didn’t Lindsay Roy (Lab) get a surprise victory there recently?

Aw naw Tom – don’t give these people the publicity. Now its not just The Orange Party’s mum who knows about the postal vote ’scandal’

OT

I wasted one and a half hours of my life watching the remake of “The Day the Earth Stood Still” yesterday.

If you have seen the original 1951 version with Michael Rennie, the Keannu Reeves movie is as thin as paper; no drama, no sympathetic characters, and too much money spent on industrial quantities of Swarfega and crowd artists who probably ran screaming in terror from the premier, along with anyone with any integrity.

Klaatu barada nikto

Old Holborn: “That was why there was such a fuss when the registers went missing from Glenrothes. It tells anyone who is entitled to know who voted what.”

Why would the SNP local authority deliberately lose a marked register? And can you point to a specific case where ballot papers have been checked against a marked register without a High Court order (or with one, come to that)?

Face it – your gripe about the voting system in this country has nothing to do with abuse – real or imaginary. It’s everything to do with the fact that time and again the people have ignored your entreaties and voted for parties you don’t agree with. Well, tough. That’s democracy. I had to put up with disappointment too, until 1997.

By the way Tom – how do you have time to put up all these posts, shouldn’t you be knocking on doors?

Oh, I see. The SNP “lost” it. It wasn’t “stolen” by unknowns then.

Some months after the election, the marked register (on which the electors who had cast their vote were marked) was discovered to be missing. In law the register ought to have been preserved for a year and a day; the Returning Officer from Fife Council had transmitted the marked register to the Sheriff Court as required by law and obtained a receipt. The Member of the Scottish Parliament for Central Fife, Tricia Marwick, had asked for a copy of the marked register on 19 November 2008; after ten weeks, the Scottish Court Service admitted the marked register was lost.[16] An inquiry by the Scottish Court Service identified significant failings in its handling of election documents, which had been placed in a room at the court office in Kirkcaldy to which outside contractors had access.[17]

I actually don’t vote. I refuse to be on the electoral register (scream!! Quick!!fine him £1000!) because I am of the opinion that if I don’t play and lots of us don’t play, eventually the game will stop. Also, I don’t like being on the electoral roll. Where I live is my business, not every marketing agency in Christendom and beyond.

Tom, I have six children (of which 5 are teenage daughters). I am well used to disappointment and not getting my own way by now. Even the cat kicks my head in regularly.

What can I say? I’m a multi-tasker. Also, I’m now home and looking forward to the Will Young concert this evening…

Blimey Tom a bit harsh considering the OH chap bought you a pint.

“I had to put up with disappointment too, until 1997.”

I predict a flashback to pre-1997 levels of disappointment in May 2010.

Can you not even acknowledge that the evidence of the last few years makes a case for increased scrutiny of postal voting? Is it not the case that rottenness is at the core of the political system in general. Are we not entitled, given the recent revelations of financial impropriety among MPs to suspect that you may not tell us the whole truth?

It comes down to a question of trust and, as a class of professionals, you have lost that trust. Since Labour is keen to scrutinise every aspect of our lives, why not extend this rigourous pursuit of the facts to the electoral process.

Postal voting is patently systemically open to abuse – not my words, but those of a high court judge.

Eh?

This morning Alex and the snp was Claiming 1000 extra postal votes now it has reached 4000 postal votes….

I think we can see the snps line of defence tommorow after their “Glasgow Kiss” and the election (watch the spelling son) of our willie to westminster

What should worry Tom (and any other voter) is that an SNP MSP (Tricia Marwick) could simply demand to see the register from Glenrothes in the first place.

Remember, that register tells anyone who has access to it what you voted.

No, it doesn’t! What a stupid thing to say! I’ll assume you’re speaking from ignorance rather than deliberately lying. After every election, I am given the opportunity to buy the marked register for Glasgow South. All it tells you is who voted, not how they voted. I assume you’re someone who puts some value on others admitting when they had made a mistake. Will you now accept that your claim about the marked register in Glenrothes or anywhere else being used to identify how people voted is, in fact, completely untrue?

Vote early and vote often!

@ Old Holborn

My understanding is that the register tells you WHO voted rather than what they voted for?

Tom, if you have access to the voting slips……you simply match A to B.

Sorry if I sound a little “untrusting”. Can’t think why.

The voting slips don’t tell you who voted what! They only confirm that a ballot was issued (Give me strength…)

You’ve never been wrong about anything, have you? You should become a politician.

The ballot paper, matched to the voting slip is a full record of what you voted. All you need is the register and the ballot papers.

As you’ve said, registers are available. Ballot papers can also be obtained. They are low level waste and held in warehouses until they are finally incinerated, sometimes years later.

In 1981 Gordon Winter – a former agent of BOSS, the South African Secret Service – writing in his book, Inside Boss, claimed that the South African government knew the identity of everyone who voted for the Communist Party of Great Britain – thanks to British intelligence using this simple vote-tracing procedure.

Not very likely Tom, the extreme right (often calling themselves “Libertarians”) are known for neither their honesty nor a straightforward approach to facts.

Chameleon promoted daniel Hannan and now has been stabbed in the back by him after going rather neo-anti-semite/homophobe in Europe seemingly at his behest.

Remember Daniel’s period outside the Tiry whip there?

Obviously postal voting is necessary for many UK residents who would otherwise be disenfranchised.

This would suit those who have other means – money mostly – to express their political will. Impecunious bloggers who imagine they shake the halls of Westminster likewise.

I remain convinced from experience that the principal frauds in postal voting, which are almost undetectable, are where the conservative owners or managers of homes for the aged & etc and other people with charge of the infirm operate postal votes at their own discretion.

Old, I’m disappointed – really. I think that even on occasions where I disagree with your argument, you still raise valid points. But on this one, you’re completely wrong. No-one knows for sure who voted for whom in Glenrothes or anywhere else in the UK, nor will they ever. The loss of the marked register was a cock-up by a nat local council. Labour won the by-election because we had more support than anyone else. Deal with it.

@TomThe voting slips don’t tell you who voted what!

I disgree, I know that study of the voting slips proved that you voted Labour.

Tell me that I’m wrong!

Of course candidates may appoint people to sit and ask people leaving the polling station how they voted and the registers or other notes such people use are commonly referred to “the marked up registers” in my experience.

Firstly many people will not say, secondly some undoubtedly lie.

I doubt that anyone other than someone duly appointed to investigate fraud could possibly gain access to the ballot papers and the registers used by Polling Staff.

It takes perhaps hundreds of man hours to count the ballots, how long it would take to see just One and note its number I hesitate to think.

Nor would it be in the interests of anyone other than the police in a suspected case of fraud to do so.

Tom,
Postal Voting is open to Abuse by all sides as you correctly point out.

Currently there are insufficent safeguards to prevent misappropriation of postal votes. (Birmingham?, Georgia? etc)

We should invite the UN to oversee our General Election in order to allay any fears of misfeasance by any party.

Postal voting is even more open to abuse than voting in person without proper identity and eligibility checks. Only the halt and the lame and the legitimately absent should be allowed to do it, but proper checks should also be made at the polling stations. If that reduces turn out (and it will) so be it. Our system is quite ludicrously open and it devalues peoples perception of the right to vote.

Sorry, I should have said if the ballots were all uniquely numbered, and I cannot recall that they are.

Agents look to ensure the count is fair, and particularly, if bored, that the few doubtful votes (all sorts of possibilities including rude words etc on the ballot) are not unjustly lost to a just cause.

The logic is that postal voting is more open to third world style fraud. Hence the party that has the most support among third world style fraudsters is the most likely to benefit from postal voting.

What new law is this Government going to introduce, to prevent the man of the house legally applying for postal votes for all the family and then ‘beating’ the shit out of them until they put their mark in the box for the Party that he wants them to vote for?

You’re right, because after all, there’s no law in existence that would prevent that at the moment, is there…?

Does the easily explicable increase in postal voting also account for the disappearance of the electoral roll after the election?

In 1981 Gordon Winter…claimed that the South African government knew the identity of everyone who voted for the Communist Party of Great Britain – thanks to British intelligence using this simple vote-tracing procedure.

Not sure why you all seem to think that OH’s vote-tracing idea is so implausible. Seems like you only need two things: the ballot papers and the register. The register can be bought (according to Tom Harris) and the ballot papers are sitting in a warehouse. A unique serial number is on each ballot paper and on the matching entry in the register.

It would be easy to match one to the other, not just with modern technology, but even using the technology of decades ago. The Royal Mail used to sort millions of small pieces of paper every day, by reading a special code off each one, then sending it on to one of millions of possible destinations. The same technology could be used to trace votes, particularly votes for “interesting” parties.

It is evident that fewer people are prepared to turn out to vote on foul nights like this.

The media, largely in the hands or under the influence of expat/foreign billionaires spend a lot of time making out that HMG is no good, and/or that there is no difference no matter what voters do.

They are happy for their money to create their political power, we principally have our votes and must use them.

WHO ON EARTH WOULD LOOK FORWARD TO A WILL YOUNG CONCERT?

i find this very worrying.

Tom, if Labour lose an election because of fraud, trust me, I’ll be three steps ahead of you in trying to nail the bastards who did it.

I really , really wish we could simply stop having elections all together. I mean, imagine if we asked someone employed by Simon Cowell to vote on our behalf on X Factor for us.

Quietzapple, you have invoked Godwin’s Law and therefore lose.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

@Old Holborn

You surely are not so stupid as to believe a BOSS biog?

Did you pay for it?

Forfend I should comment fur.. (whassat Mousico? We are looking for sponsors . . ? Oh ok.)

Tom

Methinks you do protest too much.

I was agent in an area where someone (not on the register) whom BOSS had threatened with death lived.

While he believed that they were omnipotent (knock on the door WORKS) I know that they couldn’t possibly access the ballot papers & registers there.

Such matters were discussed at a Regional meeting of Deputy Chief Execs (or somesuch).

We also had a refugee from the Chilean fascists . . . More scared.

Bullies rely on the imaginations of the scared, and fools like to encourage them.

Funny that, and whose interests they troll in . . .

‘WHO ON EARTH WOULD LOOK FORWARD TO A WILL YOUNG CONCERT?’

Why, Tom Harris of course!

[...] stooshie on the cards regarding postal vote applications: Anseo is concerned at the figures, while Tom Harris doesn’t see anything out of the [...]

Whoops!

Guido’s linked to this post

http://order-order.com/

Quick, call Kerry. She can twitter it away, I’m sure.

“I agree that it is outrageous that the SNP-controlled local authority in Glenrothes lost the marked register. Maybe they’ll blame the court system, you know, the one responsible to the SNP justice minister.”

Err… actually I hate to point this out, but in law the election was the responsibility of Jim Murphy, the Scottish Secretary!

I’m just going to wade in here, because, not only am I confused, but I have long held the belief that who you voted for can easily be traced.

Last time I voted, I turned up at the polling station 7am. Handed over my voting card (I also tried to hand over the lead for my pooch, but the wouldn’t take it, so the pooch ahd to sit in the rain). Anyway, the fat chap behind the desk (there were two incidentally, the other fat chap was eating his breakfast) took my card, proceeded to go down a list of names – this list of names had what looked like a number written against my name – that number was then written on the top of my ballot paper.

At that time I thought it strange, but as I was not astute enough to carry an eraser with me, there was nothing I could do about it.

So Tom, why on earth was that done? For what purpose? Who has access to both list and ballot paper? I do have many qualifications and maths is one of them and I know what 2+2 make.

Just watching the BBC News on the Glasgow NE election. Was it really necessary for Laura Kuenssberg to say ‘a voter said to me if you put a red rosette on a donkey they’d vote for it’? It’s not exactly an original and thoughtful insight, and actually rather insulting to the voters of Glasgow NE. Maybe they’ve get perfectly valid and sensible reasons for wanting to vote Labour? And would she have said the same thing about a blue rosette on a donkey in (for example) Cheltenham? I doubt it somehow.

@ Nicky … a donkey won Glasgow NE? Wow… things are looking up in the HOC … intelligence levels rising!

BOSS, Guido . . . poor Old Ho will be calling on Old Nick next!

Nicky:

LauraK is a tory through and through, I “followed” her on Twitter for a bit.

Did you know that BBC Breakfast has some sort of comms station for ‘visiting’ commenters?

Looks likely that such as Andrew Pierce can use it to assess the response to their first round salvo to adjust in detail for the later ‘opinion piece” and I doubt the vaguely non tory folk have such a facility.

If Glasgow NE is such a deprived area and has been Labour for 74 years, you would think the electorate would thirst for an improvement in their lot and welcome a change instead of still voting Labour. It says very little for the discernment of the voters and even less about the acumen of the previous MPs.

The changes made to the postal vote system after 1997 made it open to abuse on a grand scale.

As a political party volunteer, who also used the old system, I can see exactly how easy it is to ‘create’ votes nowadays:

you know that the old lady at 42 Acacia Avenue is now in a home 30 miles away, but is still registered to vote in your constituency so you get her a postal vote rerouted to your address;

you know that Mr Ali and his family has just moved in to 44 Acacia Avenue, but has not removed his vendors’ names from the new registers, so Mr and Mrs Smith can be allocated proxy votes that you will fulfil;

your friend Mr Russell has two lads at University at the other end of the country, but they are still registered to vote at home, so you sort out proxies for them too …..

and the EROs don’t have the resources to check all this out.

Funny Take @10:24pm

You wrote “… took my card, proceeded to go down a list of names – this list of names had what looked like a number written against my name – that number was then written on the top of my ballot paper.

At that time I thought it strange, but as I was not astute enough to carry an eraser with me, there was nothing I could do about it.”

Had you used your eraser (even if it removed ink) to remove the unique identifying ID/number then your ballot would have been counted as a SPOILT BALLOT paper and your vote could NOT be counted. Yes that is a trap for those people wishing to try and keep their votes anonymous.

To make it possible for computer systems to more easily read the completed ballot papers then YES, bar codes can be used as well. Such bar codes are harder to alter, since of course human readable unique IDs/numbers can be altered (e.g. a 1 is made a 6) by persons who don’t wish their vote to be “tracked”. However again I should state that such altered ballot papers will be counted in the SPOILT BALLOTS pile.

Cost to process ballot papers so that voters are “tracked” as to who they voted for, is not much as you may think, especially since it is widely known that the infrastructure exists anyhow, namely that the UK government has several sites for opening postal mail, scanning it in and then resealing the envelopes for final delivery to the addressee. Matter of fact. Ask the civil servants who work at such places. A FOI request might flush it all out and perhaps even before the coming UK general election.

Last night I watched the 2006 film called Man of the Year staring Robin Williams. It’s about an election electronic voting system which has a software fault such that the results are incorrect.

It’s worth watching. It is so true of software and databases. Rubbish in, then rubbish out. Votes cast, votes electronically counted with ease….. Anyone doubt me. Check out portable paper ballot counting machines. You know, then ones used to check the number of votes cast for candidates. Neat for such machines to also be able to process unique identification numbers and bar codes.

Think about it.

ref:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_of_the_Year_%282006_film%29

I am a full time election agent (for Labour). Let me explain some things:

The marked register, which is publicly available, does not include the counterfoil number of the ballot paper with which you are issued. It is a photocopy of the copy of the electoral register used in the Polling Station, which has a pen or pencil mark next to the names of those voters who voted. I have several copies in my office, purchased perfectly legally from the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (I still have the receipts!), over the past couple of elections.

It is true that ballot papers have a serial number, and that the voter’s poll number is recorded on the ballot paper counterfoil.

However, it is a serious offence – punishable, I think, by a prison sentence and an unlimited fine (my legal handbook is in the office, I’m afraid) – to attempt to match the ballot papers with the voters by using the record on the counterfoil. To this end, ballot papers and their counterfoils are kept under lock and key away from one another (and are destroyed a year after the election).

The only case in which this is not an activity that will earn you a one-way ticket to HMP Barlinne is when the High Court orders that the ballot papers and counterfoils be checked against one another. This is only done in extremely rare cases – in effect, only when extremely serious fraud is alleged on the part of one or more parties, and where that fraud could (in the Court’s opinion) have materially effected the result.

but labour are a scumbag, lying, cheating, stealing hustling party.
The other parties despite their evils dont come close to you psychopathy

One of the comments on SNP Tactical Voting saying Catriona Renton on the BBC reported CID taking ballot papers away, people turning up to vote had already been ticked off the list.

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=5457608463947849320&postID=3751500266701678729

Actually Tom it IS possible to match back each ballot paper to the person who cast the vote. It’s been that way forever. Though to do so would require sifting through the tens of thousands of ballots to find the one with the matching serial number …… oh and a court order signed off by a judge.

Btw – all elections where I live (Oregon) are 100% postal voting; we voted for it in a referendum (which wasn’t itself postal). All studies have shown that (a) turnout is around 10% higher and (b) fraud is down. And with around 30 elections/questions on the ballot it’s a damn site more convenient.

@Judith
I can believe that the current postal voting system is open to abuse. But it wouldn’t take much to fix the problem.

1) Individual voter registration, available 365 days per year. With address verification, such as driving licence number, 2 utility bills or for students away from home a college certificaion.

2) Introduce unique verification for each voter. We have signature verification in Oregon but it could be one of those online questions like “mother’s maiden name”.

3) Mail forwarding of election ballots to be prohibited. If there’s any request to forward the ballot the post office should return it to the returning officer.

4) Abolish proxy voting.

QZ. Secret agent eh? Hidden depths to you…

On IDing from whatever. When the driving licenses that followed after the little red book ones came into being, people were worried that their birth dates would be on them.

no, don’t worry your silly little heads, they said. Of course they won’t be. So they swapped them around, and put your initials in, just to fool you.

Not

Thing about those in power is that they believe we are stupid

Tom – the real thing about last night’s election is contained in the first link in my post above. Which, sadly, reflects the view that the voter IS stupid. How ANYONE in that constituency could vote Labour back in is beyond me.

Regardless, let us hope that if Cameron gets in, he makes sure Scottish MPs cannot vote on matters that affect England. N more Scottish interference in my country (which, by the way, with regard to Brown’s realisation that immigration HAS to be attended to as it is a vote loser, 90% of immigrants to the UK end up in England.

Sorry Tom, missed a word . . .

Rerouting mail is rather expensive – ask Royal Mail, who are trying to make a living doing that sort of thing.

The idea that any sane group of people would try and track the votes of politically sensitive emigres, for example, who would in any case register so that their addresses did not appear on the register is plain ‘Matrix 17 – The Election’ (U) scenario.

I did not know that politics had made paranoid so many.

The topic is raised tendentiously. To reduce the power of our votes and thereby increase the power of the Billionaires’ money undermine the apparent legitimacy of our votes.

@ Sergeant Plodder:

Part Population (mid-2006) % (mid-2006)
England 50,762,900 83.8
Scotland 5,116,900 8.4
Wales 2,965,900 4.9
Northern Ireland 1,741,600 2.9
United Kingdom 60,587,300 100

No idea wether your claim that 90% of immigrants end up in England is true, would be a Real Shock Horror if we did – eh?

I’m pretty clear that the principal voters to lose out were proxy votes to be restricted to those whose applications had to be attested by an official would be the expats on the Costa Del.

According to Sir Iain Dale, who didn’t quote a source, there are only 12,800 such (from memory).

Lots of the hundreds of thousands not so registered will have their votes filled in by relos still in the UK you betcha!

And more of them will be voting Tory than Labour, indeed there often seem to be more than 12,800 of them posting online in the BNP interest.

Voters arriving at two polling stations found their names already crossed off. Police called. Answer to Thomas Docherty (4.49 yesterday) you are right, it is open to abuse (and we have no idea of the size of the iceberg).

@Funny That

“Last time I voted, I turned up at the polling station 7am. Handed over my voting card (I also tried to hand over the lead for my pooch, but the wouldn’t take it, so the pooch ahd to sit in the rain).”

It seems to up to the guys behind the desk. I’ve taken my dogs in with me twice, they seemed to quite like dogs.

With regards to tracing votes, the mayor of the town I went to 6th form in explained this to me years ago. Given that the audit trail can improve the chance of spotting voting fraud, I think it’s beneficial.

However I am also of the mind that postal voting is asking for trouble, and should be stopped, unless you can prove that you are going to be out of the country, or can get a doctors note.

And actually not voting does send a signal, ‘None of the above’ should be an option, if only to sort out the ‘i think you’re all arses’ from the ‘i cant be arsed’.

@ Quietzapple: I agree with your comments last night about Laura Kuennsberg.

She was so pleased with that donkey quip that she actually put it in bold at the top of her article about the Glasgow by-election. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8354077.stm

The woman’s an *idiot. As Tom says, Labour worked extremely hard in the run-up to this by-election. They certainly weren’t going to take the electorate for granted. By-elections traditionally go against the party in government, and the SNP are clever at morphing into whatever they think will push the voters’ buttons.

* Remarkably, she manages to be even more shallow, annoying and Daily Mailite than Nick (Chairman of the Conservative Students) Robinson. Lord Reith must be spinning in his grave.

I come late to this bun fight but all the better for the fun of the barrage above.

I “googled” posatal, voting, fraud, some weeks ago and up popped the expected ones already outlined above.

I thought of Sighthill and all those empty and demolished flats. Where would these people be voting?

I thought of the 4,000 new voters, new voters in a shrinking ward.

I thought of the dispersed immigrants and asylum seekers but, they don’t get a vote, do they?

Then I happened upon a reference to the BNP and voting fruad. Bingo, those racist slimebags are at it too!

Instead they say it is easy-peasy to stuff the ballot box.

Just get some people in control of a polling station, who have some sort of common bond; say same school, boy scout troop, trade union, political affiliation, racist view etc.

They prepare a sum of ballot papers premarked for their chosen one.

9:30 pm they scan the register of voters, mark say 1,000 of these non voters (just a number from my toes) as having voted and stuff the ballot.

I have to adit, as I write this fro the deck of my motor yacht moored in the Mediterranean Sea that I have not voted for some years in the UK but, is it more than a BNP fantasy?

@Bugger Lugs:

Try googling any of the “leading” Tory propaganda sheets plus “libel” on the top line – and stand back . . .

I recall one of the Dully Teles claiming that 3/4 of all ATM crime in London is committed by Rumanians – why/ He’d seen it on the internet!

Check between your Lugs, mate.

Well done Old Holborn.
They really don’t like the truth to be out there LOL!
Especially,when it comes to how much they fiddle. “within the rules of course”.

Hmmm, so there is no way that anyone could know HOW I voted, only THAT I voted? Then please explain this. I usually vote Conservative. In 1997 I voted for a different party. At the next GE a canvasser knocked on my door and said to me ‘I see you normally vote Tory but last time you voted differently, what made you change your allegiance?’ How could that person have known that I voted differently?

I never vote, because the turnout’s too low in our area to make any difference.

I think our old mate Hamid Karzai would like a good old postal vote.

I read that Labour’s strategy for fighting this by election was to behave as if they were the opposition.

Tom. Do you think this tactic will also work in the general Election? Or simply make you look bizarre?

QZ. Sigh. Why do I have to explain everything to you? Regardless, it is England that takes the strain from the uncontrolled immigration that has taken place since this shower arrived. As we are now seeing, as Brown has just realised it will lose him votes down here.

Plodder:

You claimed that England has taken 90% of recent immigration, but didn’t mention Wales/N Ireland.

(Not uncontrolled, ask my son who is moving to the ME to reform a band which was broken up by the deportation of a singer who was being supported by her parents and causing no harm).

I showed the figures indicating that England is 80% of the UK population.

Now how disproportionate that is mystifies me.

Perhaps you might employ someone else to explain, as you’re labouring somewhat . . .

Quietzapple

Thank you for replying, I think, to my post but your reply was complete nonsense.

I did not say that Goggle says, so it must be the truth. I said that Google led me to a list of voting frauds proven voting fraud and I did actually follow up the various references to court cases and sentences for the miscreants.

Here is one reference to a Times article entitled

Labour election fraud ‘would disgrace a banana republic’

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article377468.ece

The quotation regarding the banana republic was made, I think by the prosecutor in this Birmingham crime.

The point I made about about the BNP article was that they said there was a very simple method to stuff ballot boxes as described.

Here is the reference

http://bnp.org.uk/2009/05/ghost-vote-polling-fraud-alert%E2%80%94call-to-bnp-voters/

I am not saying that this could happen, as I have not voted in the UK for some twenty years and the nuances of changes to the the security of ballots is outwith my experience.

As Tom Harris has tried to explain why OH’s position was incorrect re. numeration I am waiting for someone to say that the method proposed by the BNP could not ever happen.

So, please engage brain before thumping out a riposte and making a pig’s ear of yourself.

Engage brain and then type?

Oh and try not to sneer as well, it just weakens any argument, you may be trying to make.

Quietzapple

What has Romanian ATM crime got to do with Glasgow NE, or anything political?

Very political shimy to the left, or to the right, away from the point in hand.

Complete diversionary tactic designed to avoid the issue?

You must be a politician or aspirant?

Lugs;

The BNP imagine they might adopt the method you ascribe to their propagandists, they’ve read their party’s predecessors’ histories no doubt.

Try reading some of the thread. Those who have had anything to do with UK elections say it is a load of cobblers, with very rare exceptions, none of them sophisticated.

The Rumanian ATM reference suggest that it is foolish to believe all you read, especially when it is contrary to good sense and experience, especially on the internet where freaks lie incessantly. People who Do believe nonsense usually have Reasons for saying they do.

Btw are you a BNP supporter?

Quietzapple

Where to begin with you?

Let us begin with your sign off. Quite a professional political slur / smear. Your training is showing.

For the record I wouldn’t piss on the BNP if they were on fire. Moreover I wouldn’t vote for the bunch of socialist impersonators currently manifesting themselves as the Labour Party.

I have read the thread, albeit your declaration of fealty to the Labour Party was spotted just after I had made my two ripostes to you; 5:15 and 5:20.

So, you are an apparatchik.

You still have not answered my specific question, not your blanked political reassurance thank you, about whether such a ballot stuffing exercise was possible or not. If not, why not?

As for your re-trotted out nonsense about Romanian AT fraudsters, as furnished by a Google search, but not follow up to find the source, as I did remember re Labour Party voter fraud, is just another body swerve. Need to better; nul points from the European Jury!

Can the ballot boxes be stuffed as the BNP suggest is possible?

As this is the third Friday the thirteenth of the year, Google tells me this is when the Celestial Teapot becomes visible, but only to the paid members of NuLab.

Keep looking skywards, I’m off to sink, not pot a red.

Tom says: The Norwich North by-election was not in June, it was on 23 July – right in the middle of the Glasgow Fair fortnight. The nats pretended to have a fit last year when the Glasgow East by-election was held during this holiday. And why, pray tell, does a four-month delay give only Labour a chance to get people signed up for postal votes?

If nothing else, a four-month delay regardless of labour getting a chance to ensure people sign up to postal votes, it show the utter contempt in which the labour party hold the electorate of Glasgow NE.

No bluddy wonder they vote for you and your brainwashing techniques of ‘we’re the greatest’. Sadly, until the older generation die nothing will change.

At times I wish I could live until I was 100 but I doubt it.

Jings I’m amazed – a blog which is called Scottish having more comments to a post than mine!

Labour haven’t a good record regarding fraud and postal voting, but let’s wait until the police make a statement about any fraud in Deniston.

Of course, with the reputation of the west of Scotland, I doubt if any such statement will ever appear.

Strange how different the west of Scotland is compared with the east. Is it to do with the Catholic/Presbyterian beliefs or the football and other sectarian interests politicians encourage for all their drivel about condemning sectarianism?

A wee bit bitter, are we, hen?

I always ensure I read most carefully the posts of people who lyingly abuse me, most especially when they suggest I am an “apparatchik” of course . . .

. . sadly none of these fine gentlemen has ever suggested how I might obtain the emoluments they refer to.

No, the Cashcroft/Nobel Peace Prize for Patience is my sole reward.

Me bitter? Auch Tom never. Your party has to take the majority of the blame for the 1,000+ BNP votes though, so dinnae get too cocky with me.

@subrosa

Can we blame the Lib-Dems for the Nats too please?

I recall when the Libs were big in Scotland . . .

Oh and Natural Law Party and yogic flying for the Tories? After all Chameleon’s faith in Osborne’s economic policy ideas requires a similar suspension of gravity . . .