Pat Dollard

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Times Online:

OFFICIAL election monitors from the developing world have warned that the British voting system is less secure than their own and possibly the most vulnerable to corruption in the world.

Observers from Kenya and war-torn Sierra Leone, who spent the past week in Britain, said the integrity of the general election was at risk because it was based on trust rather than proper identity checks.

They questioned the legitimacy of the result after thousands of voters were turned away from crowded polling stations. The observers were also shocked by allegations that the electoral roll was being filled out with “ghost” voters.Ababu Namwamba, an MP in Kenya, said: “The allegations of fraud and of voters being turned away threaten the integrity of the vote, especially in marginal constituencies where candidates have a majority of less than 1,000.

“The number of seats the Tories needed for an absolute majority is not that high — this could have made the difference. One candidate told me that the British system is possibly the most corruptible in the whole world.”

Marie Marilyn Jalloh, an MP from Sierra Leone, said: “There has to be doubt over the legitimacy of the result. Where people have been disenfranchised or cases of fraud are found there should be another vote. In my country this would be very controversial.

“Your system is a recipe for corruption; it was a massive shock when I saw you didn’t need any identification to vote. In Sierra Leone you need an identity card and also to give your fingerprint. Here you need nothing. In this respect, our own system is more secure than yours.”

Lisa Hanna, an MP from Jamaica who won Miss World in 1993, said: “I was shocked by the lack of checks.”

Namwamba, Jalloh and Hanna are part of an 11-strong observation team from Commonwealth countries including Bangladesh, Malaysia and Nigeria.

Times Online:

Turned-away voters told to demand rerun

The scandal of thousands of people across the country being disenfranchised could lead to new contests

BRITAIN’S most senior electoral returning officer has urged people who were unable to vote in 20 constituencies to seek a rerun.

David Monks, the leader of Britain’s 400 returning officers, said he understood the anger of people who had been turned away from polling stations and insisted that they had the right to force a new vote in the affected seats.

Voters were turned away in eight constituencies that recorded majorities of fewer than 6,000.

Any of the seats in the table opposite could be contested. Two were Conservative gains, five are now in the hands of Labour and another is held by the Liberal Democrats.

It raises the prospect of two extra seats for the Tories if they were to win reruns in the constituencies where they came second and hold on to the seats they won.

Monks, election representative for the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, criticised Jenny Watson, head of the Electoral Commission, who he said “lacked a grasp of reality” when it came to the running of general elections.

Monks said: “I am not inviting people to take action against myself and my colleagues. But I am saying if people have genuine grounds for believing breaches occurred and mistakes were made and this had a genuine impact on the result, then they should push for an election petition.

“Candidates and voters can serve an election petition to try and force a rerun of the contest. But I would say if you have lost a seat by 10,000 don’t bother. It only works on narrow margins.

“The important point to remember is that the returning officer, not the council or anyone else, is responsible for the entire running of the election.”

Thousands of people lost their right to vote on Thursday because of a combination of higher turnouts, a surge of would-be voters in mid-evening and a catalogue of blunders by polling staff.

Voters in Sheffield, Manchester and Newcastle were turned away at 10pm, even though they had queued for up to two hours.

James Grenfell, a vicar, was unable to cast his ballot even though his church, St John’s in Nick Clegg’s Sheffield Hallam constituency, was the polling station.

“I turned up 5.30pm and 8.30pm but the queues were so long I decided to come back later. I did return at 9.30pm but I was still unable to cast my vote. It was very frustrating,” Grenfell said.

In Hackney South and Shoreditch a voter reached the front of the queue only to be turned back at 10pm.

Thomas Kuehn, 38, a banker, said: “They just didn’t seem to be able to cope with the number of people. It seemed a bureaucratic system. They certainly could have gone a lot more quickly.”

Keith Angus, the Lib Dem parliamentary candidate in Hackney North and Stoke Newington, said some people in the constituency were told they could not vote because they had not taken their polling card with them to the polling station — a clear breach of election law.

“They tried to cut down on the queues by saying only those with a polling card could vote,” Angus said.

Lawrence Green, a university lecturer who was one of 150 voters turned away from a polling station in Manchester Withington despite queuing for more than 40 minutes, is planning to complain to the Electoral Commission.

“I arrived at 9.15pm and thought there would be no problem casting my vote,” he said.

“Nobody could believe it when we were told that we couldn’t go in. People were angry but remained civil and there was no real aggression.”

Angry scenes and even sit-ins in Birmingham, Newcastle and Islington South were recorded on mobile phones and quickly broadcast around the globe.

Dozens of people in the marginal seat of Chester were unable to vote because they had been left off the electoral roll.Two hundred people in Liverpool were turned away when their polling station ran out of ballot papers.

Candidates and voters who are unhappy with a result have 21 days to mount a challenge. Any voter who feels the outcome of the election has been influenced by mistakes in polling stations can serve an election petition in the High Court.

Complainants bringing the action must make a payment of £5,000, although this is returned in full if their claim is successful. This may limit such actions to parties and candidates.

On Friday morning Watson denounced the long queues as evidence of Britain’s “Victorian” voting system and said the Electoral Commission would launch an inquiry.

Critics have questioned the role of the watchdog, however, which is supposed to oversee the smooth running of elections. It had flagged up no serious concerns after last year’s European polls.

Monks said Watson’s claim that there were not enough staff showed that she “lacked a grasp of reality”.

Watson is paid about £100,000 a year for a three-day week at the watchdog. She earns another £28,000 for sitting on the boards of the Audit Commission and another government quango.

John Turner, chief executive of the Association of Electoral Administrators, said that cost-cutting in local government may have contributed to the problems.

One council worker admitted that cost-cutting measures had included printing ballot papers for just 80% of voters, reducing staffing levels and having fewer polling stations.

“This time you’ve seen turnout of more than 85% in some places — and, as a result, some red faces,” he said.