Police On Alert For Scottish Election Fraud

According to The Scotsman, the Holyrood election has been left wide open to fraud on a potentially massive scale after Ministers scrapped checks designed to prevent abuse of postal votes. With just 11 days to go, a Scotland on Sunday investigation has revealed concern at the highest level that key seats could be won by fraudulent postal votes, and that there are already widespread claims of vote-buying by corrupt party activists. Despite an unprecedented 433,000 postal vote applications, an inquiry has established that:

• Computer checks on ballot signatures will be used in England, but not north of the Border;

• Date of birth checks on the same papers will happen south of the Border, but not in Scotland;

• The Electoral Reform Society in Scotland is "hugely concerned" about the scope for fraud;

• Allegations are circulating that votes are already being bought for as little as £20;

• Police have taken the unprecedented step of issuing every officer with a booklet on how to spot voting crimes.

The claims follow several scandals in England following the decision in 2003 to allow everyone to vote by post. In the 2004 local elections in Birmingham, party activists were accused of taking bundles of votes to ballot stations in black bags. A year later, allegations spread to the London borough of Tower Hamlets where nearly one in seven postal votes was estimated to be fraudulent.