Postal Voting - A Serious Threat To UK Democracy

Not suggesting that postal voting is a threat in itself, but the UK system is seriously flawed and is wide open to electoral malpractice and voter fraud.

One of the biggest problems with postal voting has always been that it doesn't guarantee a secret ballot. At a polling station, only the voter is allowed into the ballot booth. Nobody can accompany them and they can cast their vote in secret, according to their own wishes.

Not so with postal voting and there is growing evidence that British Asian politicians are adopting practices prevalent in Pakistan and India. Some do favours, or use their influence for votes. Many are sexist and they don't necessarily have their entire communities interests at heart. Worst of all, they put serious pressure on Asian women to vote for them.

Some Asian women are coming forward with stories of being told to simply sign their ballot papers, and then they are taken away from them.

Postal voting in Britain used to be restricted to those who could prove they were unable to get to a polling station, say, because of sickness or some other acceptable reason, but the system was changed by the Labour government in 2000 to allow postal voting on demand, and how things have changed..!!

At the 1997 general election, postal voting accounted for less than 2% of the votes cast. By 2005, that figure had soared to 15% nationwide (the figure in Blackburn was actually 30%) and it was mostly concentrated in areas of high Asian concentration such as Oldham, Blackburn and Tower Hamlets in London. All of them Labour constituencies. In 2004, a court found that six British Asian Labour Councillors from Birmingham were guilty of electoral fraud that would "disgrace a banana republic".

It is emerging that the usual practice is for Asian candidates to go amongst their own community getting Asian men to tell their wives to ask for a postal ballot paper and when it arrives, they are told to sign it and hand it over, leaving the voting boxes blank to be filled in later.

A report produced by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust said that the Asian system of Biraderi clan politics was now widespread in Asian communities in Britain and postal ballot papers are now being collected into "voting factories" to be filled in by party activists.

Labour can't say nobody saw this coming. In 1994, the Home Office said that A move to postal voting on demand would increase the risk of fraud....... on balance we consider that the risk of fraud outweighs the advantages of making absent voting available to all".


Labour went ahead and did it anyway.

There are moves to introduce Individual Voter Registration in 2014, but this does nothing to prevent coercion, particularly of vulnerable women in Asian communities where the practice seems to be rife.

In my opinion, we need to go back to a practice of limited postal voting, removing the "on demand" capability and therefore reducing the scope for those who would commit voting fraud, to do so.

It's not beyond the bounds of credibility that, if the next general election is as close as the last one, it could be decided by postal votes. And that is scary.

It's not just the women of Bradford, Blackburn and Birmingham who need this, it's our democracy and reputation that is at risk, here.

After all, who wants to live in a banana republic..?


.

I'm voting By Proxy at the council election. Wonder what that says about secret ballots.

Proxy?to not be part of the E.U.? To not be part of the western trading partners?

Surely the better idea is to work on helping those communities rather than stopping the many people who use and rely on postal voting for elections.

Um no, as in getting my sister to vote on my behalf as I won't be in the constituency on the day. What the hell are you on about?

I understand what your view is but to say that postal voting is at serious risk of corruption is a simplistic way of viewing the elections because the candadates arnt there because they want to change things they are there to keep the system the way it is. from my research the present,past and future candidates have all had the same moral standings and if you look at out history, not just brisish not one government has acomplished to whipe out homelessness, war, racism, poverty and so on, so just to say that corruption of how governments get into place is simplistic its more complex than that, i look at the politions as replicas of each other and havent got our intrests at heart. the politions arnt problem solves and have the same thought prosesses as the last so we need to the thinkers in place in every country not politions

I can see how that would be a problem, but it's not much different than voter intimidation. What you're describing sounds like it's from within the household. That particular scenario can play out through threatening of simply refusing to allow the woman to vote if it was thought that she wouldn't comply with what the man dictates.

It's really more of a social issue than an election democracy issue.

You can't go into a voting booth two at a time.

Blocked from voting............ May be a larger threat.

No but if someone was that subject to intimidation, they'd vote the way they were told...or else.

Like I said before (and I think it's what Sister_of_Mercy was saying too), it's a social issue. I vote by mail, so let me put myself in the shoes of the "Asian woman" in Jen's OP. Some candidate convinces my husband to tell me to sign my form and hand it over. Whatever shall I do? Oh I know, I'll say no. I can say no because my husband won't intimidate me like that. He doesn't hold that kind of power over me.

See what I mean?

And how would anyone know who they had voted for?

They wouldn't. I'm not sure how you're not seeing what I'm saying...

If a woman was that intimidated by her husband, the simple threat would be enough for her to do as she's told. The women who are not intimidated like that will say "no" when their man (of whatever relation) says to hand over their signed ballot.

It's definitely a social problem rather than a political one. It's likely that if postal voting were stopped that more people would be disenfranchised than people saved from being a victim of voter fraud.



Slightly off topic, but loving David Tennant:

And of course Hugh 'Dr House' Laurie:

P.s. Your vote doesn't count much anyway.
Unfortunately it is a "default" system
Winner takes all.
3,000,100 votes for ... 3,000, 101 votes gaainst.

Congrats! You voted against!