Postal Voting

Dear Mr Phillips

Thank you for your request for information about postal voting fraud at
the 2010 elections. I hope you will accept my apologies for the delay in
responding to your request while we checked some of the information below
with a third party.

We are aware that the media have reported allegations of electoral
malpractice at the recent elections, some of which related to possible
postal voting offences.

By way of background, you may be aware that the legislation relating to
postal voting was changed by the Electoral Administration Act 2006, to now
require voters to provide their signature and date of birth when they
return their ballot paper. Those details are checked and verified against
the original postal vote application form before the ballot paper is
counted, and where the identifiers do not match the ballot paper will not
be counted. Together with other legislation passed that year, the postal
voting process is now more secure.

This has been augmented by each police force having a single point of
contact (SPOC) officer with training in preventing and dealing with
electoral offences and a series of deterrent prison sentences. It is
impossible to prevent people attempting to break the law but the level of
preparedness of electoral administrators, the police and prosecutors is
higher than at any time since postal voting on demand was introduced in
2001.

We are awaiting comprehensive figures from the Association of Chief Police
Officers (ACPO), who are collating figures on a rolling basis from the
force SPOC officers across the UK of all police investigations currently
being carried out relating to cases of electoral malpractice. These
include those allegations linked with postal voting. While allegations
have been reported in the media and no doubt some of these will be
substantiated, the police need those who want to make an allegation to
come forward to give first hand evidence and make a statement to help with
their inquiries.

Most election related police investigations are on-going and at various
stages of completion. It will be some time before an accurate picture
emerges of allegations where an offence is proven to have taken place and
the offender has been tried in court and those allegations that are
unfounded or unsubstantiated. Jointly with ACPO, we will be publishing our
analysis of cases of alleged electoral malpractice reported to the police
early in 2011, and we will also be releasing interim figures in our
statutory report on the elections in July when the picture will be
clearer.

If you are not satisfied with this response, please note that the
Commission operates a review procedure, details of which can be found on
the Commission website at:
[1]http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/ab....

Please also note that if you have exhausted all internal Commission review
procedures and you are still not satisfied you have the right to appeal to
the Information Commissioner. Details of this procedure can be found on
the ICO website: [2]http://www.ico.gov.uk.

Yours sincerely

Tom Hawthorn

Tom Hawthorn
Head of Electoral Policy
The Electoral Commission
Trevelyan House
Great Peter Street
London SW1P 2HW
Tel: 020 7271 0712
[mobile number]
Fax: 020 7271 0505
Textphone: 18001 020 7271 0712
[3]www.electoralcommission.org.uk
[4]www.aboutmyvote.co.uk

Democracy matters

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References

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1. http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/ab...
2. http://www.ico.gov.uk/
3. file:///tmp/www.electoralcommission.org.uk
4. file:///tmp/www.aboutmyvote.co.uk