Letters From A Tory Daily views on British politics and the Conservative Party from a centre-right thinker who writes letters on his blog to politicians, journalists and many others.

Dear Greater London Assembly,

I’m glad that you have realised the potential for fraud in the postal voting system for the Mayoral elections and are trying to rectify this by training officials to spot fake signatures and votes, but I fear that you are climbing an impossibly steep hill.

Postal voting is so open to fraud that I wonder whether we can have any confidence in it whatsover.  The report released today suggests that Pakistani, Kashmiri and Bangladeshi “clans” in areas such as Oldham, Blackburn, Burnley and Birmingham have been responsible for half the postal voting fraud since 2000 as they have clearly mastered the effort of pressuring family members into voting for their chosen candidate.  Ethnic minority women in particular have suffered from the lack of privacy that a ballot box provides.  These ‘clans’ abuse their patriachal roots to force family members to complete their postal votes in a communal area or even hand their voting form over to ‘party representatives’ who completes them.  As one commenter put it on The Times website, “Further evidence of how immigration has enriched our culture”.

Northern Ireland has a far superior system, where voters register individually and provide their signature, national insurance number and date of birth, which are all checked when they vote.  In addition, voters must produce photographic identification before being issued a ballot paper at the polling booth.  In my opinion, moving elections to a weekend would also help to combat this fraud.  In any case, postal voting sounds great in theory but should be consigned to the scrap heap once the Mayoral elections are complete.

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory