Greens raise concern about postal vote application activities in marginal seat
April 27 2005
Matthew Follett, the Green Party candidate for Leicester South has attacked the current election postal voting system as “flawed and open to abuse,” singling out the Liberal Democrats’ activities in Leicester South as “at best confusing for voters, at worst a risk to the democratic process.”
His comments come in light of the news that applications for postal votes for the general election have risen by up to 500 per cent in marginal seats, sparking concern about the risk of electoral fraud.
Matthew Follett said, “In light of recent postal fraud in Birmingham and Blackburn, and the fact that officials from the Electoral Reform Society have called on Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to place strict curbs on their activists, I am disappointed to discover that the Liberal Democrats in Leicester, for one, have been sending out documents to encourage voters to post their completed application forms for postal ballots directly back to their party offices.”
He added, ”What happens if, for example, a voter sends his/her application into a party office, and it then disappears? Does this deny other parties the chance for that vote? Indeed the Electoral Commission and Association of Chief Police Officers are advising against precisely this, and I quote, 'because of the risks of suspicions that the application may be altered and the risk of the application form being delayed or lost in transit.'
To avoid the need to ask such questions I am publicly calling on all parties in Leicester South, and indeed across Leicester as a whole, to rein in their activists and call a public halt to all postal voting involvement by political parties.”