CPS May Prosecute Over East End Election Fraud Allegation

According to the East London Advertiser, the Crown Prosecution Service is studying a report into an allegation of electoral fraud in East London. The inquiry is believed to centre on the Weavers ward in Bethnal Green, successfully won by Fazlul Haque for Labour last month. A CPS spokesman said: "We have had preliminary discussions with the police about Councillor Haque. They have sent us a report and our discussions continue." The Met's acting Borough Commander for Tower Hamlets, Steve Bending, said: "We are investigating an allegation of electoral fraud in relation to the local election in Tower Hamlets on May 1."

Former Councillor Faces Election Fraud Prosecution

The Halifax and Calderdale Evening Courier reports that a former Calderdale councillor could face prosecution for election fraud. Mohammed Chaudhary Sagir, 62, of Gibbet Street, Halifax, was formally reported to the Crown Prosecution Service. The allegations relate to five incidents of making false statements to obtain proxy votes for this year's local elections. A 19-year-old man who was arrested in April has been released without charge.

Police Probe Vote Rigging Claims

Accrington police are set to probe allegations of vote rigging at the local elections staged earlier this month. Conservative councillor and Cabinet member Allah Dad, retained the Accrington's Central ward seat from Labour's Tariq Ali and Lib Dem's Ifty Khan in this month's council elections with a majority of 220. However complaints about the high number of proxy votes cast - up to 10 times higher than past elections - have led to a police investigation. 50% of all proxy votes cast throughout Hyndburn's 12 wards were made in the Central ward election. A police spokeswoman confirmed an investigation into the number of proxy votes was taking place but said: "We are unable to confirm at this point the nature of the complaints which led us to investigate."

Revolving Doors For Current And Former Jailbirds

In a move reminiscent of the Soviet Union at the time of Stalin and Trotsky, disgraced ex-mayor Mohammed Choudhary has been eliminated from the history of Peterborough after his portrait was removed from its display position in the town hall by former mayor Marion Todd. Councillor Todd took the unprecedented step after Mr Choudhary, Peterborough mayor from 1996 to 1997, was jailed for rigging votes in the 2004 Peterborough City Council election. And in a simultaneous move that could not have been scripted by the most cynical observer of politics, the The Peterborough Evening Telegraph reports that Gul Nawaz - a city councillor who served a one-month jail term for a £3,000 benefit fiddle in 2002 - was elected as the town's new deputy mayor.

Police Strike "Anti-Fraud Deal" With Political Parties

According to ic Sefton and West Lancs, police in West Lancashire have struck a deal with local political parties after they promised to tighten up procedures following a police investigation into alleged election fraud. Detectives have ruled that no criminal charges will be brought over inaccuracies on nomination forms at the local elections in West Lancashire held on Thursday, May 1. In the Moorside (Skelmersdale) and Derby (Ormskirk) wards, Conservative and Labour nominations respectively were not in accordance with Electoral Commission guidance, the police investigation determined. However, police say no further action will be taken after undertakings were given on behalf of both parties to improve practice and procedure.

Police Raid Home In Voting Fraud Investigation

Police have raided another home as part of their investigation into vote-rigging in Slough, according to the Slough & Langley Observer. Officers are reported to have "stormed a house" in Wellesley Road Slough at around 7.30am on Tuesday. Although they carried out a search warrant nobody was arrested.

The search was part of the on-going probe into election fraud during May 2007 elections when Labour's Lydia Simmons lost her Central ward seat to former Tory Eshaq Khan after 23 years. A special election court earlier this year found that fake names were used to cast votes.

Khan faces criminal charges along with five other men, including Slough deputy mayor Mohammed Aziz. The group are due back at Reading Crown Court on Friday, August 8.

Police Probe Into May 1st 'Election Fraud'

According to the Ormskirk Advertiser, police have confirmed they are investigating allegations of fraud following the May 1 local elections in West Lancashire. It is believed a woman claims her details were featured on the form supporting a candidate without her consent and police are trying to establish if it was due to a misunderstanding, a clerical error or was something more sinister before considering possible criminal charges.

Detective Sergeant John Cass, the investigating officer, said: "We've had some allegations made in connection to some potential irregularities in the election process with the West Lancashire District Council elections. The investigation is at a very early stage and we need to speak to the people involved." Election fraud of this kind can carry a punishment of an unlimited fine or up to one year in jail, according to the Electoral Commission.

Labour MP Throws Vote Rigging Mud In Commons

According to reports in This Is Lancashire, Bury North MP David Chaytor abused his position during Prime Minister's Question Time this week to make allegations of postal vote rigging against Bury Council's Conservative leader Bob Bibby. The Bury North backbencher was supposed to be asking Gordon Brown what he could do to help low income families facing economic pressure. But as Tory MPs cheered his mention of Bury, which the Conservatives had won days before in the local elections, Mr Chaytor added: "In Bury, we now have the only Tory leader in the country who has been subject to a police investigation into fiddling pensioners' postal votes."

Councillor Bibby said later that Mr Chaytor must be afraid of losing his seat if he had to stoop so low. "I think it was completely and utterly out of order, and had no relevance to what he was supposed to be asking," he said. "If he wants to crawl out from under a stone and lower himself to that standard, let him carry on. I'm not going down that road. He is supposed to be the MP for the whole area, and I don't think it will go down well with his constituents."

Election Fraud: Labour Failed To Act, Say MPs

Ministers have failed to act decisively against postal ballot fraud because they fear stirring up controversy in ethnic minority communities where most cases of abuse have been uncovered, senior Labour MPs admitted today in an article penned by Guardian Political Editor Patrick Wintour. One MP conceded that the government had also been reluctant to tighten procedures in case it depressed the Labour vote.

The criticism, made on the eve of the local elections, comes from the Labour-controlled Public Administration Select Committee as part of its inquiry into the government's constitutional reforms. It is likely to demand the introduction of some form of individual - rather than household - registration, which would require photo ID. The committee believes ministers have been resisting change for three years despite calls from the Electoral Commission to tighten procedures to prevent identity fraud.

Man Charged Over Election Fraud

A former parish councillor in Hampshire has been charged after an investigation into alleged electoral irregularities, according to the BBC. John Hall, of Coriander Way, Whiteley, was charged at the weekend following a police inquiry into proxy voting in the Whiteley ward of Winchester. The 67-year-old is accused of with making a false instrument under the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981. Mr Hall also faces charges of falsely registering information and making a false proxy voting application. The Conservative activist will appear at Guildford Magistrates' Court on Friday, 2 May.

At the 2007 election for Winchester City Council, the Conservatives retained power with 29 seats ahead of the Liberal Democrat with 23 seats, four independents and one Labour representative. One third of the council seats will be contested at the local elections on Thursday this week.

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.

Arrest In Election Fraud Inquiry

According to news reports from BBC Wales, a 54-year-old woman has been arrested by South Wales Police over allegations relating to election offences. She was arrested in Swansea on Saturday and interviewed but was later released on bail pending further enquiries. The BBC also reports that police are investigating an alleged case of election fraud in the city involving a forged signature on a Conservative nomination paper. A Tory council candidate has resigned, although it is understood the electoral fraud case is not related to his nomination. Norman Whitlock was responsible for overseeing nominations for a number of candidates in the Swansea area.

Election Campaigner Charged Over Rigging Bid

Police have charged a political activist with attempting to rig one of Thursday's local elections, according to The Hampshire Daily Echo. John Hall, who has been campaigning for the Meon Valley Conservatives in Whiteley, is accused of applying for a proxy vote without the person's permission. The fiercely-contested Winchester City Council ward was won by the Tories at the last election by tightest of margins, beating the Liberal Democrats by just 19 votes.

The 67-year-old, a former Whiteley parish councillor, is due to appear in court the day after the elections. Police launched an investigation into apparent voting irregularities after a member of the public complained to the council. Hall, of Coriander Way, Whiteley, has been volunteering for the local Tory party, but was not himself standing for election. It is understood he has now been suspended from the party. Hall has been charged with false registration information, false proxy voting application and making a false instrument.

Four More Arrests In Election Fraud Probe

Police have arrested four more men in connection with election fraud in Slough, according to the Slough & Windsor Observer, on suspicion of perjury and attempting to pervert the course of justice. The men, who police have not yet named, are aged between 30 and 50. They were taken to a Thames Valley police station where they will be interviewed by detectives. These men are the latest in a long line of people embroiled in the vote-rigging saga which took place in the Slough local elections last year where former councillor Eshaq Khan ousted long-standing Lydia Simmons with bogus voters. On Tuesday last week six Slough men crammed into Slough Magistrates to face election fraud charges. This included deputy mayor, Cllr Mohammed Aziz who is charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud and four counts of applying for postal votes as another person.

Council Issues Election Fraud Warning

According to The Telegraph & Argus, Bradford Council and the police have issued a warning they will be taking a tough stance on allegations of electoral fraud. The statement comes as more than 50,000 postal ballot papers are being posted out next week across ahead of the forthcoming local elections on Thursday, May 1.

This year West Yorkshire Police, Bradford Council's chief executive and returning officer Tony Reeves, electoral fraud experts from the Crown Prosecution Service and the Electoral Commission are co-operating even more closely to ensure the elections are run fairly and safely. It follows eight allegations of impropriety at last year's Bradford Council election, none of which resulted in any action. In addition, a high-profile case is proceeding through the courts with seven men accused of vote-rigging in the run-up to the 2005 general election.

Vote Riggers Jailed

Following a four-month trial, the former mayor of Peterborough, Labour's Mohammed Choudhary (49) has been jailed for nine months after being convicted of vote-rigging. Labour candidate Maqbool Hussein, 52, was jailed for three months and Tariq Mahmood, 40, received a 15-month term, according to this BBC report. All three from Peterborough, were convicted of forgery over a scheme to fabricate votes for the Peterborough city council election in June 2004. The judge ordered Choudhary to pay £20,000 towards his costs and Mahmood to pay £15,000. He did not make an order relating to Hussein. The three were able to get hold of postal and proxy votes which belonged to voters in the central ward and arranged for postal and ballot papers to be sent not to the voter but to addresses with which each defendant was connected. Choudhary and Hussein were Labour candidates in the election - and neither won seats despite the scam. Mahmood was a local Labour party secretary.

Labour Peer Points Finger At Ethnic Minority Vote Riggers

According to a report in 24dash.com, Labour peer Lord Campbell-Savours has claimed that election fraud is concentrated in ethnic minority communities. He told the Lords at question time that the Government to direct its efforts to stamp out fraud on minority communities and not the population a whole, saying: "Much of this fraud is centred on the ethnic minority community. Junior justice minister Lord Hunt of Kings Heath denied that there was a serious problem but agreed with targeting of minority communities, telling the Upper House: "I think the best way forward is for the Electoral Commission to continue its work in giving general advice but also to make sure that where targeted information is appropriate they should also target their efforts." But veteran Liberal Democrat campaigns strategist Lord Rennard said: "The vast majority of crime in this country is actually unreported and therefore not prosecuted. Therefore the recent scandals over postal vote abuse in places such as Birmingham and Slough may be the tip of the iceberg." The UK should now accept individual voter registration or abandon postal voting on demand.

Now Even The Candidate Selection Is Allegedly Vote Rigged

An article in the Rochdale Observer reports the shock resignation of 17 members of the local LibDems plus former mayor and ex-president, Rodney Stott. The members are claiming that a ballot to choose Milkstone and Deeplish’s candidate for May’s elections was rigged. Candidate Javed Iqbal has slammed the party as ‘undemocratic’ because he believes he won the members’ vote despite the fact that Cabinet member, Councillor Mohammed Sharif, was selected by the party’s executive committee. Party officials maintain the ballot was a tie and the executive committee was asked to step in and make the final decision. Mr Iqbal has appealed against the decision and the 17 members have given up their membership in protest. They joined him in a protest outside Liberal Democrat MP Paul Rowen’s office. "I’m disgusted and very upset," said father-of-three Mr Iqbal. "This Liberal Democrat party is not the party I joined."

Postal Voting Cheats Are Threat To May Elections

Fears of widespread fraud in the local elections in May were raised yesterday, according to The Times, after a judge said that the rules for postal ballots were fatally flawed. Just weeks before more than two million people are expected to vote by post in local council and mayoral elections, Richard Mawrey, QC, said that postal voting on demand was "lethal to the democratic process". He said that the current system made "wholesale electoral fraud both easy and profitable" and accused politicians of failing to act after past scandals. He urged sweeping reforms to electoral law dealing with corruption.

The Electoral Commission urged the Government to heed its calls to introduce individual registration for all voters similar to the scheme in Northern Ireland for the past few years. "We have been saying since 2003 that the current system of voter registration in Great Britain is not sufficiently secure and that a system of individual voter registration is needed to provide a secure foundation for both registration and postal voting," a spokesman for the commission said yesterday.

The chief safeguard included in the Electoral Registration Act 2006 was to require people voting by post to sign a form and write their date of birth when returning their ballot paper, to be checked against the signature on their original request.

But the judge attacked the move as inadequate, saying council staff were untrained to match signatures and computers were unreliable, meaning bogus ballots still slipped through and some genuine votes were rejected.

Councillor Ousted For Part In Election Fraud

Conservative Eshaq Khan has been ousted as a Slough councillor for his part in rigging votes, according to the Slough & Windsor Observer. The politician and his agents were found guilty of illegal and corrupt practices in Slough's May 2007 elections when Labour Councillor of 23-years, Lydia Simmons, lost her central seat by 120 votes. National media and residents looked on as the verdict was announced during an election petition hearing at Slough Town Hall. This seat will now be up along with the normal Central ward seat during the upcoming ballot on local election day – Thursday, May 1.