POSTAL VOTE FRAUD?

Found this and thought it may interest folks, what are your thoughts?

The 16 areas under extra scrutiny

• Birmingham
• Blackburn with Darwen
• Bradford
• Burnley
• Calderdale
• Coventry
• Derby
• Hyndburn
• Kirklees
• Oldham
• Pendle
• Peterborough
• Slough
• Tower Hamlets
• Walsall
• Woking

Postal voting is marred by "real fraud" and should be drastically scaled back, Conservative MP Andrew Stephenson has said.

His call was echoed by Judge Richard Mawrey who said he had not seen an election since 2006 that was "totally fair and honest".
Electoral Commission chair Jenny Watson said it would not be "proportionate" to end postal voting altogether.
The government also said it had no plans to abolish the current system.
Since 2001, anyone on the electoral roll has been able to apply for a postal ballot.
In January the Electoral Commission said it was particularly concerned about 16 council areas in England.
In some of those areas, the BBC has heard allegations that political activists are pressuring families into voting for their candidate, or taking ballot papers away to fill them in, which is illegal.
'Wide open to fraud' BBC Radio 4's File on 4 spoke to a man in Derby who said his mother had her postal vote cast for her by activists who turned up at her house and pressurised her into letting them fill in her ballot paper.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

I think it particularly important that a relatively small number of cases of abuse, which need to be addressed and clamped down very firmly, don't prevent other people - the vast majority of people - using it in a law-abiding way”

Greg Clark Cabinet Office Minister

• 'Ghost' voters and the perils of postal ballots

"Campaigners came to the house and they asked my mum to vote for them and actually my mum, not being able to read English, she didn't know where to put the cross, so one of the people put the cross in the box for her and said, 'There you go now you can just sign it and we will take it off you.'

"Your votes are supposed to be anonymous but when people come to your house and are literally doing it for you that is not you voting is it? That is them voting for you and voting for themselves."
Mr Stephenson, the MP for Pendle, which is one of the 16 areas of concern, said: "There is real fraud going on.
"The government should really look at this issue and really look at going back to only allowing postal votes to people who have a genuine need for a postal vote.
"Everybody else should turn up at the polling station, like they always used to have to, in order to cast their vote".
Judge Mawrey, who tries corruption cases, agreed: "Postal voting on demand, however many safeguards you build into it, is wide open to fraud.
"And it's open to fraud on a scale that will make election rigging a possibility and indeed in some areas a probability."
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that postal voting had not increased turnout or helped particularly vulnerable groups who might find voting difficult to do it more easily.
"All it actually does is create a convenience for members of the public who would rather fill in something in their own home."