UK Electoral System "Falls Short Of International Standards"

The news this morning has been filled with reports of the findings of the report into the electoral system published by Joseph Rowntree Trust. The shocking headline conclusion, reported by the BBC, is that elections in the UK fall short of international standards with the system vulnerable to fraud, a report by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust claims. The media was not slow in spotting the irony of this conclusion at a time when the British Government has been criticising Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF over the elections in Zimbabwe.

The report attacks the state of the country’s electoral registers, which often include voters who are dead, fictitious or have a vote registered elsewhere. In some areas, particularly those with many migrants, up to a third of eligible voters may be missing from the roll. The Trust calls for an urgent overhaul, including making voters show photographic ID to get a ballot paper. It also calls for the cleansing of electoral registers to ensure that all names are legitimate. Thousands of "phantom" voters have just been removed or have disappeared from the register in Peterborough after the council drew up a new electoral roll.

The Electoral Commission said that more reforms were needed. "We continue to urge the Government to replace the system of household registration with individual voter registration," a spokesman said. "In many parts of the UK, structures for delivering elections are stretched to breaking point." The Ministry of Justice said that the Government had taken significant steps to protect the electoral process, including new penalties for vote fraud.