Elections Minister Bridget Prentice today announced that new measures being introduced to reduce election fraud will not bring an end to the "drama" of election nights.The new controls include postal voters writing the date on the form and providing a signature, although nobody is quite sure what in-built anti-fraud mechanism applies to writing a date and there is currently no intention to introduce checking of slips against applicants signatures unless a complaint is registered after the poll.
The Minister confirmed that the change would not mean later results and that election nights would continue to "entertain".
It would be cruel of me to suggest that, in some cases involving postal voting, the spectacle failed to entertain to the same degree as the results.
New election security measures to come into force.
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A word about evidence. Most of what people think is material evidence of a criminal offence is in fact either hearsay evidence (asserted, but without any proof) or circumstantial evidence (suggests guilt but does not prove it). For an introduction to the subject of evidence, try: