Judge slams British Labour Party over vote fraud

BIRMINGHAM - A judge has delivered a devastating indictment of the British postal voting system championed by Ministers and found six Labour councillors guilty of electoral fraud.

He said checks against corruption were "hopelessly insecure" and accused the Government of being in denial about the risks to democracy.

Sitting in Birmingham, Judge Richard Mawrey found "overwhelming" evidence of fraud - that would "disgrace a banana republic" - in last year's city council elections.

The elections, where several Labour candidates bucked the trend to win their seats, were dogged by claims of intimidation, bribery, 'vote-buying', impersonation and even the creation of a 'vote-forging factory'.

The judge's comments were highly embarrassing to the Labour Party.

The court ruled against three Labour councillors in Birmingham's Bordesley Green ward - Shafaq Ahmed, Shah Jahan and Ayaz Khan - and three in the Aston ward - Mohammed Islam, Muhammed Afzal and Mohammed Kazi.

The results of the June 10 poll were declared void and the vote will be re-run next month.

The court had been told that six Labour activists, including two candidates, were discovered by police at midnight in a warehouse with 275 postal votes for Aston ward laid out on a table. They were confiscated by officers, who were later instructed to submit them to the elections office.

A handwriting expert concluded that hundreds of signatures on postal votes in Birmingham were probably forged.

The court was told that Labour supporters stood on main roads attempting to bribe passers-by to hand over their postal ballots. Children were deployed to steal papers from letter-boxes and householders were intimidated into handing their forms.

A postman was allegedly offered £500 ($1300) for a sack of a ballot papers and then threatened with death if he refused. A postbox containing voting slips was set alight.

Hundreds of voting forms were sent to "safe house" to be filled in. Ballot papers were judged valid even though the original votes had been changed using correcting fluid.

The result was that large numbers of genuine voters turned up at polling stations to find they had already been allocated a postal vote which they had never seen.

On the day of the local elections, the council ran out of ballot boxes and some votes had to be taken to the count in plastic shopping bags. One carrier bag full of votes materialised at the last moment. After frantic negotiations, it was allowed to stand for the election. The court was told that the ballot papers were folded in the same way - and all marked in favour of Labour candidates.

Mr Mawrey said: "Bordesley Green and Aston were not isolated incidents but were part of a Birmingham-wide campaign by the Labour Party to try, by the use of bogus postal votes, to counter the adverse effect of the Iraq war on its electoral fortunes."

The judge said Government claims that safeguards against vote-rigging were in place revealed a "state not simply of complacency but of denial".

He said: "The fact is there are no systems to deal realistically with fraud and there never have been. Until there are, fraud will continue unabated."

Mr Mawrey attacked rules that allow voting slips to be sent to addresses other than those on the Electoral Register and was scathing that they were sent out by ordinary mail in clearly identifiable envelopes.

He said: "Short of writing 'Steal Me' on the envelopes, it is hard to see what more could be done to ensure their coming into the wrong hands."

The judge added: "Frauds of this magnitude require a considerable degree of organisation and manpower, not to mention supervision and coordination.

"It would be unthinkable for them to be the work of a few hot-head activists, working behind the backs of the candidates and their party."

But Chaman Salhan, a solicitor representing two of the councillors, said: "My clients stand by their innocence. They are victims of circumstance - in effect we have had a criminal trial under civil procedures."

The Electoral Reform Society said there had been allegations of fraud in Blackburn, Guildford and Hackney involving different parties.

A spokesman said: "We do not believe that electoral fraud is confined to Birmingham, to the Labour Party or, most importantly, to particular communities.

"We are not alarmist and do not believe that the outcome of, say, the General Election is likely to be seriously affected by fraud. But we are concerned that the cases which have come to the public's attention so far may be only part of a wider problem."

The Labour Party announced it had suspended the six councillors, and would conduct a "vigorous disciplinary process" against them. It would also send a senior National Executive Committee member to monitor the general election campaign in Birmingham.

Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat president, said: "These activities by Labour Party candidates in Birmingham are disgraceful. Changes in electoral law are clearly required - but sadly will be too late for this general election."

Liam Fox, the Tory co-chairman, said: "We all want to see improved turnout at elections but this must not come at the price of electoral fraud.

"The way in which postal voting has been rolled out has raised too many questions and caused widespread public concern about the integrity of Britain's electoral system."

He called for postal vote applications to be supported by details of voters' date of birth and National Insurance number.

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