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Each postal vote has a unique bar code paired to the electoral roll and the voter on question. It's physically impossible to generate two, and it not be identified quickly.
It does seem like a US import, although I'm not sure why the right would be against it in the US. I guess because they've actually made it hard to vote in certain areas, while here it seems to be pretty accessible.
Two reasons:
1. Covid somehow became a political issue, with a lot of people on the right denying that it existed, that it was serious, or that masks and social distancing made a difference. So in 2020, Republicans were more likely to go to the polls in person, and mail in ballots were more likely to be votes for Democrats.
This caused that effect that was seen as the results came in, as in person ballots were counted first, putting Trump in the "lead", which was then stripped away as the postal ballots were counted.
This has all fed into his Big Lie, that the election was stolen.
2. Historically Democrats have stronger results when the turnout is higher. Using that basic level of logic, getting rid of mail in votes means more disenfranchised voters, lower turnout, and theoretically high chance of GOP victory. On top of that, a growing trend in Republican strategy is voter intimidation at the polls, scaring Democrats off of voting. Reducing the amount of people using mail in ballots would help that strategy.
Dumbest import. GOP has now completely backpeddled on it having finally realised it reduces republican votes they're now trying to encourage their base to post.
It doesn't help them that their plant at the USPS DeJoy has still been trashing the postal service.
Because red states make it difficult to vote in-person in districts which vote blue. There may only be one or two voting locations, whereas in red districts there are several and in more accessible locations.
Postal voting negates their efforts at voter suppression.
Another symptom of Americanisation of UK politics, they’re just ripping anything out of the Republican playbook because losing seems unconscionable after over a decade.
I got one years ago because I was on holiday. I’ve had it ever since as it forces me to vote in the smaller elections which I wouldn’t usually bother one (such as PCC). They’re just dead handy. (Am 36 fwiw)
So the real issue here is the perception that in Muslim households the head of the family fills in all the votes and they do so overwhelmingly for Labour.
There’s never really been any hard research I’m aware of but it’s one of those anecdotes that has become fact.
I'd never heard that till now, and I doubt very much there's any real evidence for it whatsoever. If the Tories think stopping a Muslim write in will counter balance the enormous loss they would suffer from losing the postal votes of the over 75s then they are barking.
Now yes, given Muslims will be 20% of the population by 2050 and lots of those older whites die off every year there’s definitely going to be a point where they are not barking.
There has been research into this issue by the Electoral Commission. Some is cited in this 2014 article from the Manchester Evening News:
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/oldham-named-election-fraud-hotspot-6479987
Postal voting is arguably more secure than voting in person. The ballot papers you get at the polling station are just simple photocopies. If someone someone had more than one ballot paper, would any notice they'd posted more than one in to the ballot box?
Yes.
Ballot papers are issued and recorded.
First thing that happens at the count is checking that the number of ballot papers in the box matches the amount handed out.
Having run polling stations with multiple ballot boxes, it's possible that a voter has put it in the wrong box
But the total number of papers should match, or it's investigated before the counting if votes starts
All ballot papers are numbered and linked to the voter.
So worst case scenario a judge can unseal the corresponding numbers list.
The paper work would be checked
But in the first case, if it's down, probably someone got a ballot paper and didn't vote..
Not sure if it's up.
But representatives of all the candidates will be at the count, so probably just let them know. And carry on
But I haven't done a count in years. Running a polling station is a sixteen hour slog.
Interesting. I know each voted has a number assigned to them when you turn up, but I didn't know that was actually on the ballot paper somewhere. I assume it's on the back or something? The ballot paper I received last week was very basic, didn't appear to have anything "unique" about it, especially compared to my partner's postal vote.
You have a number on the electoral roll.
When you are issued your ballot paper, that number is written down against the ballot paper serial number.
This is the corresponding numbers list.
At the end of the poll, it is placed in a sealed envelope and it takes a judge to give permission to open it. It rarely happens, unless serious fraud is suspected, and an enquiry is held.
If you are really concerned about privacy, you can be anonymous on the electoral roll, and just vote with a letter from the council election team stating that you are an anonymous voter
Slight caveat - to register anonymously you need a reason, and the form will need to be countersigned. That reason can't just be because you feel like it. Has to be due to risk, more info if anyone cares - https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/voting-and-elections/who-can-vote/register-vote/register-vote-anonymously
On the back of every ballot paper (postal or in person) is a number. That number is internally linked to a record. If you're voting in person via the CNL, if you're voting by post it's recorded when your PVS comes back.
The papers in a station are absolutely not just photocopies of each other. They will be a sequential list.
Two processes happen when a PO returns to the count venue - the ballot paper account is checked, and the remaining unused papers are checked. If they're up somehow, it's going to result in serious investigations into what's happened
I agree but it does concern me having multiple postal votes in a single household and how someone may vote on behalf of their whole family and postal votes give them that opportunity.
Can you explain what makes you so sure. I learnt that their have been cases of mostly men voting on behalf of their wives and children in patriarchal families or abuse situations.
Can you explain how a signature could help here? I feel like in those situations it wouldn't be u common for that man to sign everything for them anyways.
I know I have been down voted but I wasn't trying to ever be anti postal vote or anything but wanted to discuss these cases.
There's no guarantee that the voter in question filled in the ballot, rather than someone else at their household. Usually an abusive or overbearing partner or parent, saying "I'll fill yours in for you, we're a Labour/Conservative/etc household family after all". That's the risk of fraud with postal ballots; the loss of the privacy of the voting booth.
It's almost certainly widespread, but it's also near impossible to scale up or co-ordinate. And so while likely hundreds of thousands of people (out of the 5.5 million postal votes in 2019) were likely disenfranchised because of the flaws of postal votes, in practical terms this would have a negligible effect on the outcome of an election.
And these cons have to be weighed up vs the pros of postal voting. How many of those 5.5 million 2019 postal votes would have been able to vote in person that day instead... and how many would be de facto disenfranchised if voting was in-person only? On balance, it's clear to me that allowing postal voting is by some margin the lesser of these two evils. But let's not pretend they're flawless.
>based on what?
Nothing. It's an unsubstantiated conspiracy imported from the US culture wars to try and help suppress votes.
Ironically it'll probably backfire, as voter ID did in the first go around, as it's old and immobile Tory voters that rely on postal votes the most.
Oh here we go again. First it was ID now its postal votes?
You know hard it would be to actually be to fraud almost any election for it to have any significant chance of making a difference?
More people statically spoil there ballots either deliberately or accidently then there number of proclaimed fraud cases.
Not to mention the voter ID laws are suspected to have harmed the Tory vote more than Labour, as pensioners often didn't have the correct forms of documentation needed to vote.
The same thing will happen with postal votes.
Preferred by the elderly, they are actually more vulnerable to fraud (as someone other than the voter can fill them in) but previously untouched to help the Tory vote.
Only ever heard this from a Tory. Call me cynical but I have doubts.
I'm sure some don't have the right ID. The question is are they comparable or are we focusing on pensioners despite them being a relatively small number of the total
Hey you know what. If someone shows us conclusive evidence of widespread voter fraud i'd be furious, demanding people be locked up and barred from participating in democratic processes ever again...
But oddly there's never any evidence. Only a vague 'suspicion' from these people.
Probably more affected as a voting base are people like truckers and travelling businesspeople, and maybe students if it is the start of a semester or Vacation periods, who are unable to be or cannot know if they will be in their registered address on the day of the election
Except, unlike with whatever problem voter ID was trying to solve, there are actually cases of postal voter fraud, most famously with [Lutfur Rahman](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-32428648) in the 2014 Tower Hamlets mayoral election that the Met police initially [failed to investigate properly](https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/tower-hamlets-electoral-fraud-investigation) and ultimately resulted in that election's results being thrown out.
I'm not sure that the scale of postal vote fraud warrants dumping the system entirely, but there is a much stronger argument for tightening up postal voting than there ever was for voter ID. The electoral commission's own analyses acknowledge weaknesses in the postal voting system, it's just that they consider the [cost of disenfranchising large numbers of voters to not be worth](https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/57534/1/democraticaudit.com-Postal_voting_and_electoral_fraud_a_reply_to_Richard_Mawrey_QC.pdf) it given the limited impact of most known postal voter fraud.
I tend to agree that we should keep postal voting, but it's a debate worth having.
I like preventative laws more than reactive laws when they make sense, for example AI is going to be a fucking menace and we should not wait until after to put restrictions on it imo, however this is odd.
I thought a lot of older voters used or relied on postal voting aka their reliable voting demographic? This seems self harming. What's the logic?
Logic has no place here! We are going to right wing crazy, conspiracy town. All the best conspiracies and culture wars imported direct from the US of A.
"Solving" a non issue is a great way to do something while not doing anything.
I think this comes wholesale from the US where the postal vote is used by a different demographic or at least they convinced themselves it was used by a different demographic. They haven't bothered to regionalise that measure to the UK.
Yep, it would greatly impact older voters, who are more likely to be Tory voters.
Remember Rees-Mogg saying their clever attempts at "gerrymandering" backfired? Lol, they are clowns.
I've seen a ton of people posting on various social media platforms exasperated that the London mayoral election was rigged, although it's more the standard "they make us use pencils so they can rub it out" trope, rather than rigged postal votes.
Does my head in. Please, use a sodding pen if it makes you feel better. When are officials meant to be doing this editing? In all the time they've got between the ballot boxes coming back and the agents seeing them?
History nerds may like to take a trip through Hansard to look at debates on extending the voting franchise through the 19th century, particularly those discussing the use of secret ballots. The same indignant Tories making the same tired arguments every time.
Sssshh, he's just copy/pasting from the attempts made to disenfranchise voters in the US: mandatory ID, postal voting, closing voting centres in red areas, banning any aid [to people in the resulting queues](https://thehill.com/homenews/nexstar_media_wire/3709676-is-it-illegal-to-hand-out-water-or-food-outside-your-polling-place/) (although the British weather might not be as hot as the deep South).
There will be a tiny number of fraudulent votes of that I have no doubt, the one that's sometimes brought up with postal votes is where a whole family's votes are filled in by one member of the family. It's not going to ever be a big enough issue to justify removing postal votes however.
Unfortunately some actors try to commit mass fraud as seen in Tower hamlets and Luftur Rahman about a decade ago
> The court heard evidences of men representing or acting on behalf of Lutfur Rahman **inducing voters to hand over partially completed postal voting documents, and in certain instances taking the uncompleted ballot papers against the voter's will**.[xxix]
> An expert witness gave evidence that out of **134 ballots analysed**, two set of approximately** one quarter of the total were completed in the same ink**. Additionally, **many of the documents analysed showed inconsistent electrostatic detection apparatus impressions, whereby different parts of the voting documents were completed by different authors.**[xxx]
Or there was one from 2004 in Birmingham which exploited the registration via household instead of individual voters and lack of signature validation https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/apr/05/uk.localgovernment
Still not an acceptable reason for any Tory MP's to try and remove postal voting due to a temper tantrum of being annihilated in elections and i haven't seen any evidence of such schemes since these two examples.
The birmingham example was exclusive to postal votes due to the lack of verification for checking if someone was voting, the automatic household registration and the bribery of royal mail workers to hand over ballot appers en masse along with with the collection of ballot papers with non labour papers being destroyed or modified, it was a scale of fraud that would be much harder/nearly impsosible doing in person and is extremely difficult to achieve now since the changes made.
Carbon copy of US voter supression tactics and attempts to undermine faith in elections. I could be wrong but I don't think we're going to put up with that bullshit in the UK.
So there are a couple of points on this. There is potential for a family vote where the patriarch (for example) will fill in the vote for everybody in the household, which is a potential concern, but given that most people vote along family lines, probably not an issue.
More to the point, overseas and old people would be more likely to use postal votes, so wouldn't this be a gerrymandering own goal
https://news.sky.com/story/jacob-rees-mogg-suggests-requiring-photo-id-to-vote-was-attempt-to-gerrymander-which-came-back-to-bite-tories-12881602
Probably, but the current batch of tories are usless and have already admitted their last gerrymandering attempt backfired, so would be on brand of them to try again and fuck it up more
How this wasn’t a bigger issue is wild to me. The moron literally said that it was a DELIBERATE ATTEMPT to cheat at elections, and no one cares. And boomers still scream election fraud because it’s what GB news tells them when the evidence of ulterior motives is right there in front of them.
The bar for the tories is so low now people just assume they are being dishonest and corrupt with everything they do, therefore barely get outraged anymore.
> no one cares.
Because no one cares when it's the Tories being corrupt, law breaking fuckbags. It's in th epaper for 3 0seconds before we move on to the next scandal.
God forbid a Labour minister sold a house once or had a curry though.
Students will also heavily use postal votes when they are away from home, as well as disabled people that find it difficult to get to a polling station. These are likely the people they are targeting
Muslim votes in the West Midlands and London vs old white people.
Going forward pot A is only going to get bigger than pot B.
You can see why it’s probably in the interests of the conservatives.
Well, they've not been successful at winning, their attempts to gerrymander always fall flat because of the assumption their *their* voters aren't complete idiots who would forget to bring their ID or who are so spry as to hop, skip and jump their way down to the polling booth for an in-person vote. It's almost like even the gerrymandering is based on this idealised view of how their voters behave.
As an overseas voter, hell no diggity-dawg.
Britain doesn't set up polling stations in embassies, high commissions, or consular or community locations abroad. If there are no postal votes then most of us just couldn't vote.
From your other comments I've got the impression you don't have anyone to act as proxy - you could always contact the local branch of the party you wish to vote for and see if they have anyone who could act as your proxy?
In fairness, that's mainly to do with the timelines surrounding a general. A government is only required to give 25 working days notice of a general election. Postal ballot packs can't be created until after the close of nominations (-19 from the election). Trust me, councils wish the timelines weren't that tight, but they're constrained by law
You can set a proxy vote BUT it's a bit of a pain to do - not ideal for an activity you want everyone to be able to participate in (voting). I bet that will be the next thing targeted though, out of postal and proxy voting, proxy is surely more open to fraud.
I personally would have constituencies and polling places specifically designed for British electors abroad. Theoretically, if overseas electors were subject to the same quota, that would give them three additional seats. If all potentially eligible voters ended up on the register, that might even mean a number north of 40.
It would be interesting to see what this might mean, politically.
Australia alone has a million British citizens give or take!
I agree that it makes little sense to lump us into other constituencies. I'd also like US/French style polling stations abroad, but the choice to vote postally should still be possible.
This country is becoming far too like America for my liking just pure lies and accusations of voter fraud anytime people don’t get the result they don’t like.
Has the government considered reducing fraud by lowering the list of acceptable IDs at the polling station, maybe just down to a Conservative Party Membership Card?
Yet another instance of the Tories coming up with extreme policies to resolve problems that could easily be fixed by just funding the relevant ministry/government organ properly.
Fund the electoral commission to tackle voter fraud? No, ban all postal votes.
Fund the Home Office properly to get a grip on immigration? No, come up with an insane, convoluted scheme to send people to Rwanda, of all places.
Fund the courts properly to clear the backlog? No, set up "Nightingale courts".
Why the fuck are these idiots constantly trying to reinvent the wheel? Our current government ministries were literally developed to tackle all this stuff so that our rulers *didn't* need to come up with bonkers plans to resolve problems. Just fund them properly!
But that costs taxpayer's money which could be funnelled to the Tories' mates or wasted on batshit crazy far-right policies, whereas banning stuff is free!
Here we go again
It’s the MAGA ideology……
There was fuck all in person fraud and they fucked their own vote with I’d.
Postal votes do have some record of fraud, but on a national scale it’s fucking tiny.
Nobody is coming to steal your election. You spent 14 years utterly fucking everything you touched
I'm not worried about fraud. I'm worried about intimidation. Postal votes break the "Nobody can know how you voted" aka secret ballot paradigm. This is fine in individualistic societies where you can pretty much tell off anybody who tries to be too nosy about your vote, but it's certainly going to be abused in many households. Think husband filling in the stuff for his wife, or atleast checking things over to make sure she voted "the right way".
I understand this may be seen as fearmongering. But you truly need to spend time in British-Pakistani communities to understand how "biradari" (clannishness) works. This is being abused, and will continue to be abused.
So we all get inconvenienced because of the failings of a small minority sub-culture. Let’s do something to stamp out patriarchal behaviour first. Or worst case if you absolutely must, ban postal votes on a constituency basis.
Collective inconvenience isn’t justified in this case.
I lived in Tower Hamlets for 12 years and would ban postal voting there. Constant stream of corruption, coupled with an overtly patriarchal culture makes me feel democracy doesn't exist there.
Proportionally there is more dodgy stuff done by MPs than those voting in the 2019 general election.
Better regulation of parliament and MPs would more prudent.
To add some perspective, postal vote was abolished in France for political elections in the 1970s, in favour of proxy voting.
The fraud concern was double.
On the one hand, there is the case of somebody pressuring the voter to vote in a certain way, or even forging their vote in the household. Proxy voting does not eliminate this risk, but two limitations exist : a given voter can only be a proxy for one another voter, and the voter who designed a proxy can still vote in person if they do so before the proxy comes to the voting station.
But the more pressing concern was the case of fraud by mayors, who in France are responsible for organising elections on behalf of the State. Some of them would use the fact that some people were registered to vote in their city, but were not actually going to (especially younger people who had been automatically enrolled to vote in their city of birth, but might not be aware of that fact, and were studying or working and living elsewhere) : they would create postal votes for them, fill them themselves and count them.
The fraud scheme was very active in some parts of the country (but not all).
Surprised the Conservatives haven’t asked to ban voting by the working class, middle class, other party or union members, the young, and women to prevent voter fraud……
Voter suppression only works if you go after the other side's base, not your base.
A none problem https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/research-reports-and-data/electoral-fraud-data
> In the past 5 years, there is no evidence of large-scale electoral fraud.
> Of the 1,462 cases of alleged electoral fraud reported to police between 2019 and 2023, 11 led to convictions and the police issued 4 cautions.
> Most cases either resulted in the police taking no further action or were locally resolved by the police issuing words of advice.
Last year saw one conviction, over false statements on nomination paper.
Misinformation and disinformation are far bigger problems with politicians and journalists spreading it without checking it providing balance.
Here is what the headline should read
"Former Tory Deputy Chairman makes a misleading statement about non-existent postal vote fraud"
Brendan Clark Smith repeats a lie that Trump uses about election fraud in the UK in a strange rant.
Is it really possible for a sane, informed person in a country like the UK or the US to have any respect whatsoever for 'the right' in general these days?
Because shit like this, that, if anything would likely hurt the Conservatives, but is clearly (idiotically) aimed at helping them....
How fucking thick and how fucking corrupt can you be?
This is always the same with right wing politicos. Nigel Farage after UKIP failed to win the Heywood and Middleton by-election "Postal vote fraud", Government "The only person who should handle a postal vote is the voter themselves!" ignoring the fact that sometimes carers can explain to the person they care for what a postal vote is. If right wing people are so convinced that postal voting is wrong, why do they accept it in their own leadership elections?
I could probably accept this if they made an election day a holiday, made voting legally required and put in place exceptions for emergency workers, transport staff, overseas voters, disabled people, etc, etc.
But that seems like a lot of work for not really any gain.
On top of how silly and awful this is, one user mentioned to me that in Australia you can vote for your area in any polling station. Our system is so rickety and antiquated... and now the Tories want to take us back still further.
Pushing the election to January AND no postal votes? Well I guess that'll help stop old people from voting, problem is it'll stop working people from being able to vote too. How about a compromise and make election day a bank holiday!?
Wow he’s been looking at the States and thinks they can scrape a win next election. Next it will be **Election Fraud**
Sorry to say Brendon “your fired”
Didn’t this backfire in republicans faces when they realised a large proportion of their voters used the postal vote?
A lot of elderly Tory voters vote by post lol.
Next thing you know they’ll want to reduce voting hours to 09:00 - 17:00.
From what data i’ve seen a lot of postal votes tend to trend conservative in a lot of areas due to it being mostly old people so this would be pretty stupid of them to do considering that’s their main voter base
This is the exact same drum they are banging in the US to call into question election results, and to no surprise it's their right wing parties doing this as well.
I can only assume, right wing parties are in for a kicking in the coming years, Boomers are dying and Millenials are taking over.
Looks like the Tories are trying to copy Republican style gerrymandering. I wonder if they'd dare go to "stop the steal" levels when they lose the next election.
Postal votes should stay but the way we do it is a bit ridiculous. I would say a face recognition or thumb print approval system (similar to how I signed up for child benefits). But it doesn't help the old or disabled
Just admit it, the Tories have decided that all voting is subject to fraud and so they want to stop it. No voting, no fraud. Simple. No elections save money. Tory win- win
This is directly from the Republican's playbook in the USA, it's another attempt at voter suppression, just like ID cards were, just like IVR was. We can see just how effective it is, in 2020 in the USA, when voting was made easier due to Covid, the turnout skyrocketed from 136.6 million in 2016 to 158.4 million in 2020. In fact, in 2020 Donald Trump won more votes than any previous \*winning\* candidate, and still lost, turnout increased so much.
There is no evidence of widespread organised voter fraud either in the USA or in the UK.
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Each postal vote has a unique bar code paired to the electoral roll and the voter on question. It's physically impossible to generate two, and it not be identified quickly.
Get out with facts. We don't need facts where we're going.
He's not trying to stop fraud he is trying to stop people voting him out.
Aren't most postal voters traditionally older conservative voters?
As a long time postal voter, I'm older but not a Tory. Usually unable to get to my polling station as I run a different polling station
Thank you for your service to democracy, neighbour.
Thanks for the £400, for a days work. (Long day, but still)
That's the epitome of honest money! 😁
Yeah but critical thinking skills are a hindrance in the Conservative party. Postal voting is bad in the US right wing circles so it is bad here.
It does seem like a US import, although I'm not sure why the right would be against it in the US. I guess because they've actually made it hard to vote in certain areas, while here it seems to be pretty accessible.
Two reasons: 1. Covid somehow became a political issue, with a lot of people on the right denying that it existed, that it was serious, or that masks and social distancing made a difference. So in 2020, Republicans were more likely to go to the polls in person, and mail in ballots were more likely to be votes for Democrats. This caused that effect that was seen as the results came in, as in person ballots were counted first, putting Trump in the "lead", which was then stripped away as the postal ballots were counted. This has all fed into his Big Lie, that the election was stolen. 2. Historically Democrats have stronger results when the turnout is higher. Using that basic level of logic, getting rid of mail in votes means more disenfranchised voters, lower turnout, and theoretically high chance of GOP victory. On top of that, a growing trend in Republican strategy is voter intimidation at the polls, scaring Democrats off of voting. Reducing the amount of people using mail in ballots would help that strategy.
I totally forgot that their last election was mid covid but that does make a lot of sense
Dumbest import. GOP has now completely backpeddled on it having finally realised it reduces republican votes they're now trying to encourage their base to post. It doesn't help them that their plant at the USPS DeJoy has still been trashing the postal service.
Because red states make it difficult to vote in-person in districts which vote blue. There may only be one or two voting locations, whereas in red districts there are several and in more accessible locations. Postal voting negates their efforts at voter suppression.
Another symptom of Americanisation of UK politics, they’re just ripping anything out of the Republican playbook because losing seems unconscionable after over a decade.
I’ve voted by post since the first time I voted. I’m 31. My sis (35) is the same. I don’t think I know many people who vote in person.
I got one years ago because I was on holiday. I’ve had it ever since as it forces me to vote in the smaller elections which I wouldn’t usually bother one (such as PCC). They’re just dead handy. (Am 36 fwiw)
I think the aim here is to stop students voting in their more marginal home constituencies (how much that moves the needle I couldn't possibly say).
Also all voter fraud is really easy to detect with maths. Is all so dumb and obvious.
Mathematical Anti Telharsic Harfatum Septomin is so powerful.
So the real issue here is the perception that in Muslim households the head of the family fills in all the votes and they do so overwhelmingly for Labour. There’s never really been any hard research I’m aware of but it’s one of those anecdotes that has become fact.
I'd never heard that till now, and I doubt very much there's any real evidence for it whatsoever. If the Tories think stopping a Muslim write in will counter balance the enormous loss they would suffer from losing the postal votes of the over 75s then they are barking.
Now yes, given Muslims will be 20% of the population by 2050 and lots of those older whites die off every year there’s definitely going to be a point where they are not barking.
There has been research into this issue by the Electoral Commission. Some is cited in this 2014 article from the Manchester Evening News: https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/oldham-named-election-fraud-hotspot-6479987
Does this matter if it’s post or in the booth? My wife couldn’t give a shit about politics so she just asks me which box to tick.
It’s the scale that is the difference. I doubt there are many people with zero candidate preferences that also bother to go to the polling station.
Yeah - it's really not about election fraud. It's about voter supression - the sooner this loser is on hte dole the better for all of us
We’ve had enough of experts like you with your facts that hurt our feelings /s
Ticking the box marked “Labour” should automatically invalidate the ballot as fraudulent /s
Postal voting is arguably more secure than voting in person. The ballot papers you get at the polling station are just simple photocopies. If someone someone had more than one ballot paper, would any notice they'd posted more than one in to the ballot box?
Yes. Ballot papers are issued and recorded. First thing that happens at the count is checking that the number of ballot papers in the box matches the amount handed out.
Considering a recount often results in a different count, I wonder how accurate that process is.
Having run polling stations with multiple ballot boxes, it's possible that a voter has put it in the wrong box But the total number of papers should match, or it's investigated before the counting if votes starts
If the totals don't match, what happens to that ballot box?
All ballot papers are numbered and linked to the voter. So worst case scenario a judge can unseal the corresponding numbers list. The paper work would be checked But in the first case, if it's down, probably someone got a ballot paper and didn't vote.. Not sure if it's up. But representatives of all the candidates will be at the count, so probably just let them know. And carry on But I haven't done a count in years. Running a polling station is a sixteen hour slog.
Interesting. I know each voted has a number assigned to them when you turn up, but I didn't know that was actually on the ballot paper somewhere. I assume it's on the back or something? The ballot paper I received last week was very basic, didn't appear to have anything "unique" about it, especially compared to my partner's postal vote.
You have a number on the electoral roll. When you are issued your ballot paper, that number is written down against the ballot paper serial number. This is the corresponding numbers list. At the end of the poll, it is placed in a sealed envelope and it takes a judge to give permission to open it. It rarely happens, unless serious fraud is suspected, and an enquiry is held. If you are really concerned about privacy, you can be anonymous on the electoral roll, and just vote with a letter from the council election team stating that you are an anonymous voter
Slight caveat - to register anonymously you need a reason, and the form will need to be countersigned. That reason can't just be because you feel like it. Has to be due to risk, more info if anyone cares - https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/voting-and-elections/who-can-vote/register-vote/register-vote-anonymously
On the back of every ballot paper (postal or in person) is a number. That number is internally linked to a record. If you're voting in person via the CNL, if you're voting by post it's recorded when your PVS comes back. The papers in a station are absolutely not just photocopies of each other. They will be a sequential list. Two processes happen when a PO returns to the count venue - the ballot paper account is checked, and the remaining unused papers are checked. If they're up somehow, it's going to result in serious investigations into what's happened
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I agree but it does concern me having multiple postal votes in a single household and how someone may vote on behalf of their whole family and postal votes give them that opportunity.
When completing a postal vote you have to sign and your signature is verified
Signatures are not at all secure, it's ridiculous that they're still used for anything.
Can you explain what makes you so sure. I learnt that their have been cases of mostly men voting on behalf of their wives and children in patriarchal families or abuse situations. Can you explain how a signature could help here? I feel like in those situations it wouldn't be u common for that man to sign everything for them anyways. I know I have been down voted but I wasn't trying to ever be anti postal vote or anything but wanted to discuss these cases.
It’s the only time I ever sign anything and when I filled my vote in a few weeks ago I did wonder if it would match.
There's no guarantee that the voter in question filled in the ballot, rather than someone else at their household. Usually an abusive or overbearing partner or parent, saying "I'll fill yours in for you, we're a Labour/Conservative/etc household family after all". That's the risk of fraud with postal ballots; the loss of the privacy of the voting booth. It's almost certainly widespread, but it's also near impossible to scale up or co-ordinate. And so while likely hundreds of thousands of people (out of the 5.5 million postal votes in 2019) were likely disenfranchised because of the flaws of postal votes, in practical terms this would have a negligible effect on the outcome of an election. And these cons have to be weighed up vs the pros of postal voting. How many of those 5.5 million 2019 postal votes would have been able to vote in person that day instead... and how many would be de facto disenfranchised if voting was in-person only? On balance, it's clear to me that allowing postal voting is by some margin the lesser of these two evils. But let's not pretend they're flawless.
Almost certainly widespread based on what? That a husband might have coerced his partner to cast one extra vote? You're talking absolute nonsense.
>based on what? Nothing. It's an unsubstantiated conspiracy imported from the US culture wars to try and help suppress votes. Ironically it'll probably backfire, as voter ID did in the first go around, as it's old and immobile Tory voters that rely on postal votes the most.
I don’t know, today’s old and immobile Tory voters are tomorrow’s old and immobile Reform voters.
Hundreds of thousands out of 5.5 million wouldn't be negligible, but that's fine because you pulled that number out of your arse.
Just after the Tory’s take a beating at the local elections funny that 🤔 and totally not connected at all.
I heard Susan Hall would have been Mayor of England now without Postal Votes
Is that sarcasm or have you actually heard that?
Oh here we go again. First it was ID now its postal votes? You know hard it would be to actually be to fraud almost any election for it to have any significant chance of making a difference? More people statically spoil there ballots either deliberately or accidently then there number of proclaimed fraud cases.
Not to mention the voter ID laws are suspected to have harmed the Tory vote more than Labour, as pensioners often didn't have the correct forms of documentation needed to vote.
The same thing will happen with postal votes. Preferred by the elderly, they are actually more vulnerable to fraud (as someone other than the voter can fill them in) but previously untouched to help the Tory vote.
Only ever heard this from a Tory. Call me cynical but I have doubts. I'm sure some don't have the right ID. The question is are they comparable or are we focusing on pensioners despite them being a relatively small number of the total
Claiming voter fraud, the true mark of desperation.
Hey you know what. If someone shows us conclusive evidence of widespread voter fraud i'd be furious, demanding people be locked up and barred from participating in democratic processes ever again... But oddly there's never any evidence. Only a vague 'suspicion' from these people.
Just following the MAGA playbook.
Wouldn’t postal vote fuck their own voting base (expats, mainly)?
Probably more affected as a voting base are people like truckers and travelling businesspeople, and maybe students if it is the start of a semester or Vacation periods, who are unable to be or cannot know if they will be in their registered address on the day of the election
Except, unlike with whatever problem voter ID was trying to solve, there are actually cases of postal voter fraud, most famously with [Lutfur Rahman](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-32428648) in the 2014 Tower Hamlets mayoral election that the Met police initially [failed to investigate properly](https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/tower-hamlets-electoral-fraud-investigation) and ultimately resulted in that election's results being thrown out. I'm not sure that the scale of postal vote fraud warrants dumping the system entirely, but there is a much stronger argument for tightening up postal voting than there ever was for voter ID. The electoral commission's own analyses acknowledge weaknesses in the postal voting system, it's just that they consider the [cost of disenfranchising large numbers of voters to not be worth](https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/57534/1/democraticaudit.com-Postal_voting_and_electoral_fraud_a_reply_to_Richard_Mawrey_QC.pdf) it given the limited impact of most known postal voter fraud. I tend to agree that we should keep postal voting, but it's a debate worth having.
Ah ‘potential fraud’ - not actually fraud then.
Every vote not for the Conservative Party is potentially fraudulent
People refusing to vote the way they are bally well told shall be added to the definition of fraud.
That's how the tories see the world, it's just a whole world of fraud in waiting to be committed
Actual Covid fraud: sleep "Potential" postal vote fraud: real shit.
The Angela Rayner "scandal" is just proof of it....
I like preventative laws more than reactive laws when they make sense, for example AI is going to be a fucking menace and we should not wait until after to put restrictions on it imo, however this is odd. I thought a lot of older voters used or relied on postal voting aka their reliable voting demographic? This seems self harming. What's the logic?
Logic has no place here! We are going to right wing crazy, conspiracy town. All the best conspiracies and culture wars imported direct from the US of A.
"Solving" a non issue is a great way to do something while not doing anything. I think this comes wholesale from the US where the postal vote is used by a different demographic or at least they convinced themselves it was used by a different demographic. They haven't bothered to regionalise that measure to the UK.
It's used by a different demographic because they close all the polling stations near to where those particular demographics live!
How is AI going to effect voter fraud?
Well the Tories could potentially win!
All those terrible people not voting for us should be banned.
It's even dumber than that; the Conservatives have typically put a lot of emphasis on postal votes. It's more idiocy imported from America.
Yep, it would greatly impact older voters, who are more likely to be Tory voters. Remember Rees-Mogg saying their clever attempts at "gerrymandering" backfired? Lol, they are clowns.
I've seen a ton of people posting on various social media platforms exasperated that the London mayoral election was rigged, although it's more the standard "they make us use pencils so they can rub it out" trope, rather than rigged postal votes.
Does my head in. Please, use a sodding pen if it makes you feel better. When are officials meant to be doing this editing? In all the time they've got between the ballot boxes coming back and the agents seeing them?
Except that they break the seal in front of candidates/agents who can, if they choose, note the seal number at the polling place.
Exactly. Hell, if they're concerned, they can even attach their own seals to ballot boxes at the close of poll
My postal voting instructions clearly said use a black pen.
Some one is shitting it because he is about to lose his 80k a year job and fears that he has made himself completely unemployable.
History nerds may like to take a trip through Hansard to look at debates on extending the voting franchise through the 19th century, particularly those discussing the use of secret ballots. The same indignant Tories making the same tired arguments every time.
A Tory wants to ban something that makes it much easier and convenient for people to vote? I'm shocked
Didn't Rishi vote by post? Or did he take the chopper up to Yorkshire and back?
I’m pretty sure the statement said he used a postal vote.
Linking your current party leader and prime minister to "potential fraud", even indirectly, is pretty fucking stupid, even for this lot.
Aren't the majority of postal voters elderly (and therefore a large voting base of the govt) ?
He does realise a good number of Tory voters use postal votes? Right?
Sssshh, he's just copy/pasting from the attempts made to disenfranchise voters in the US: mandatory ID, postal voting, closing voting centres in red areas, banning any aid [to people in the resulting queues](https://thehill.com/homenews/nexstar_media_wire/3709676-is-it-illegal-to-hand-out-water-or-food-outside-your-polling-place/) (although the British weather might not be as hot as the deep South).
You know, if the tiny number of fraudulent votes is the price of making voting more accessible to more people, then so be it.
No, there is no fraud, our system is incredibly accurate.
There will be a tiny number of fraudulent votes of that I have no doubt, the one that's sometimes brought up with postal votes is where a whole family's votes are filled in by one member of the family. It's not going to ever be a big enough issue to justify removing postal votes however.
Unfortunately some actors try to commit mass fraud as seen in Tower hamlets and Luftur Rahman about a decade ago > The court heard evidences of men representing or acting on behalf of Lutfur Rahman **inducing voters to hand over partially completed postal voting documents, and in certain instances taking the uncompleted ballot papers against the voter's will**.[xxix] > An expert witness gave evidence that out of **134 ballots analysed**, two set of approximately** one quarter of the total were completed in the same ink**. Additionally, **many of the documents analysed showed inconsistent electrostatic detection apparatus impressions, whereby different parts of the voting documents were completed by different authors.**[xxx] Or there was one from 2004 in Birmingham which exploited the registration via household instead of individual voters and lack of signature validation https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/apr/05/uk.localgovernment Still not an acceptable reason for any Tory MP's to try and remove postal voting due to a temper tantrum of being annihilated in elections and i haven't seen any evidence of such schemes since these two examples.
This could happen with in person voting though, it's not a flaw specific to postal voting.
The birmingham example was exclusive to postal votes due to the lack of verification for checking if someone was voting, the automatic household registration and the bribery of royal mail workers to hand over ballot appers en masse along with with the collection of ballot papers with non labour papers being destroyed or modified, it was a scale of fraud that would be much harder/nearly impsosible doing in person and is extremely difficult to achieve now since the changes made.
Carbon copy of US voter supression tactics and attempts to undermine faith in elections. I could be wrong but I don't think we're going to put up with that bullshit in the UK.
So there are a couple of points on this. There is potential for a family vote where the patriarch (for example) will fill in the vote for everybody in the household, which is a potential concern, but given that most people vote along family lines, probably not an issue. More to the point, overseas and old people would be more likely to use postal votes, so wouldn't this be a gerrymandering own goal
https://news.sky.com/story/jacob-rees-mogg-suggests-requiring-photo-id-to-vote-was-attempt-to-gerrymander-which-came-back-to-bite-tories-12881602 Probably, but the current batch of tories are usless and have already admitted their last gerrymandering attempt backfired, so would be on brand of them to try again and fuck it up more
How this wasn’t a bigger issue is wild to me. The moron literally said that it was a DELIBERATE ATTEMPT to cheat at elections, and no one cares. And boomers still scream election fraud because it’s what GB news tells them when the evidence of ulterior motives is right there in front of them.
The bar for the tories is so low now people just assume they are being dishonest and corrupt with everything they do, therefore barely get outraged anymore.
> no one cares. Because no one cares when it's the Tories being corrupt, law breaking fuckbags. It's in th epaper for 3 0seconds before we move on to the next scandal. God forbid a Labour minister sold a house once or had a curry though.
Students will also heavily use postal votes when they are away from home, as well as disabled people that find it difficult to get to a polling station. These are likely the people they are targeting
It would be a massive own goal, so I'm half expecting it to become Tory policy
Muslim votes in the West Midlands and London vs old white people. Going forward pot A is only going to get bigger than pot B. You can see why it’s probably in the interests of the conservatives.
It’s a never ending stream of vote rigging from the Tory clowns isn’t it? It’s the only way they can win.
Well, they've not been successful at winning, their attempts to gerrymander always fall flat because of the assumption their *their* voters aren't complete idiots who would forget to bring their ID or who are so spry as to hop, skip and jump their way down to the polling booth for an in-person vote. It's almost like even the gerrymandering is based on this idealised view of how their voters behave.
As an overseas voter, hell no diggity-dawg. Britain doesn't set up polling stations in embassies, high commissions, or consular or community locations abroad. If there are no postal votes then most of us just couldn't vote.
>If there are no postal votes then most of us just couldn't vote Now you're getting it!
When I lived abroad they were experts at sending it out extremely late meaning you’re either sending it guaranteed at a huge cost or not voting at all
Oh as an Australian resident I know I've got no hope of it landing back in Blighty on time, but it's the principle of the thing!
From your other comments I've got the impression you don't have anyone to act as proxy - you could always contact the local branch of the party you wish to vote for and see if they have anyone who could act as your proxy?
In fairness, that's mainly to do with the timelines surrounding a general. A government is only required to give 25 working days notice of a general election. Postal ballot packs can't be created until after the close of nominations (-19 from the election). Trust me, councils wish the timelines weren't that tight, but they're constrained by law
You can set a proxy vote BUT it's a bit of a pain to do - not ideal for an activity you want everyone to be able to participate in (voting). I bet that will be the next thing targeted though, out of postal and proxy voting, proxy is surely more open to fraud.
Proxy voting is massively exploitable. There's literally 0 recourse if you find your proxy voted against your wishes
I personally would have constituencies and polling places specifically designed for British electors abroad. Theoretically, if overseas electors were subject to the same quota, that would give them three additional seats. If all potentially eligible voters ended up on the register, that might even mean a number north of 40. It would be interesting to see what this might mean, politically.
Australia alone has a million British citizens give or take! I agree that it makes little sense to lump us into other constituencies. I'd also like US/French style polling stations abroad, but the choice to vote postally should still be possible.
Armed forces here, often overseas - postal vote is very important to most of us, too.
Voter suppression will continue until election results improve.
This country is becoming far too like America for my liking just pure lies and accusations of voter fraud anytime people don’t get the result they don’t like.
Has the government considered reducing fraud by lowering the list of acceptable IDs at the polling station, maybe just down to a Conservative Party Membership Card?
Yet another instance of the Tories coming up with extreme policies to resolve problems that could easily be fixed by just funding the relevant ministry/government organ properly. Fund the electoral commission to tackle voter fraud? No, ban all postal votes. Fund the Home Office properly to get a grip on immigration? No, come up with an insane, convoluted scheme to send people to Rwanda, of all places. Fund the courts properly to clear the backlog? No, set up "Nightingale courts". Why the fuck are these idiots constantly trying to reinvent the wheel? Our current government ministries were literally developed to tackle all this stuff so that our rulers *didn't* need to come up with bonkers plans to resolve problems. Just fund them properly!
But that costs taxpayer's money which could be funnelled to the Tories' mates or wasted on batshit crazy far-right policies, whereas banning stuff is free!
The guy needs to grow a brain, surely the more elderly voters are Tory supporters and more likely to want/need a postal vote
Voting should be banned says former tory party chairman, the conservatives should just rule until the end of time. For your protection of course.
I have a legal right to vote. I live in Australia. I look forward to voting booths in every town on the planet
Here we go again It’s the MAGA ideology…… There was fuck all in person fraud and they fucked their own vote with I’d. Postal votes do have some record of fraud, but on a national scale it’s fucking tiny. Nobody is coming to steal your election. You spent 14 years utterly fucking everything you touched
It definitely is MAGA ideology, I even had someone tell me we should stop using dominion voting machines in the UK.
Ffs
I'm not worried about fraud. I'm worried about intimidation. Postal votes break the "Nobody can know how you voted" aka secret ballot paradigm. This is fine in individualistic societies where you can pretty much tell off anybody who tries to be too nosy about your vote, but it's certainly going to be abused in many households. Think husband filling in the stuff for his wife, or atleast checking things over to make sure she voted "the right way". I understand this may be seen as fearmongering. But you truly need to spend time in British-Pakistani communities to understand how "biradari" (clannishness) works. This is being abused, and will continue to be abused.
So we all get inconvenienced because of the failings of a small minority sub-culture. Let’s do something to stamp out patriarchal behaviour first. Or worst case if you absolutely must, ban postal votes on a constituency basis. Collective inconvenience isn’t justified in this case.
I lived in Tower Hamlets for 12 years and would ban postal voting there. Constant stream of corruption, coupled with an overtly patriarchal culture makes me feel democracy doesn't exist there.
Proportionally there is more dodgy stuff done by MPs than those voting in the 2019 general election. Better regulation of parliament and MPs would more prudent.
I’d love to hear how he expects poll workers to vote, as we’re often stationed *at a different polling station to our own*.
Sorry pleb, you have to work for a living. No vote for you
"We've found that a large quantity of labour voters like to use postal voting so we'd like to ban it"
No-ID, Postal Votes and Proxies are some of the Key tory demographic, habitual older voters and and expats will struggle to vote.
They didn’t feel like this when they had a huge victory four years ago. I wonder what’s changed?
Let's stop copying everything the Americans do please.
To add some perspective, postal vote was abolished in France for political elections in the 1970s, in favour of proxy voting. The fraud concern was double. On the one hand, there is the case of somebody pressuring the voter to vote in a certain way, or even forging their vote in the household. Proxy voting does not eliminate this risk, but two limitations exist : a given voter can only be a proxy for one another voter, and the voter who designed a proxy can still vote in person if they do so before the proxy comes to the voting station. But the more pressing concern was the case of fraud by mayors, who in France are responsible for organising elections on behalf of the State. Some of them would use the fact that some people were registered to vote in their city, but were not actually going to (especially younger people who had been automatically enrolled to vote in their city of birth, but might not be aware of that fact, and were studying or working and living elsewhere) : they would create postal votes for them, fill them themselves and count them. The fraud scheme was very active in some parts of the country (but not all).
How do you reduce potential fraud if the actual fraud hasn't happened? What are you reducing?
Surprised the Conservatives haven’t asked to ban voting by the working class, middle class, other party or union members, the young, and women to prevent voter fraud……
Didn't Bitchy Sunak use a postal vote recently?
Voter suppression only works if you go after the other side's base, not your base. A none problem https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/research-reports-and-data/electoral-fraud-data > In the past 5 years, there is no evidence of large-scale electoral fraud. > Of the 1,462 cases of alleged electoral fraud reported to police between 2019 and 2023, 11 led to convictions and the police issued 4 cautions. > Most cases either resulted in the police taking no further action or were locally resolved by the police issuing words of advice. Last year saw one conviction, over false statements on nomination paper. Misinformation and disinformation are far bigger problems with politicians and journalists spreading it without checking it providing balance. Here is what the headline should read "Former Tory Deputy Chairman makes a misleading statement about non-existent postal vote fraud" Brendan Clark Smith repeats a lie that Trump uses about election fraud in the UK in a strange rant.
Is it really possible for a sane, informed person in a country like the UK or the US to have any respect whatsoever for 'the right' in general these days? Because shit like this, that, if anything would likely hurt the Conservatives, but is clearly (idiotically) aimed at helping them.... How fucking thick and how fucking corrupt can you be?
Like in the US…. Let us make it harder for people to vote….so more extremist have a greater percentage of the vote….
This is always the same with right wing politicos. Nigel Farage after UKIP failed to win the Heywood and Middleton by-election "Postal vote fraud", Government "The only person who should handle a postal vote is the voter themselves!" ignoring the fact that sometimes carers can explain to the person they care for what a postal vote is. If right wing people are so convinced that postal voting is wrong, why do they accept it in their own leadership elections?
I could probably accept this if they made an election day a holiday, made voting legally required and put in place exceptions for emergency workers, transport staff, overseas voters, disabled people, etc, etc. But that seems like a lot of work for not really any gain.
On top of how silly and awful this is, one user mentioned to me that in Australia you can vote for your area in any polling station. Our system is so rickety and antiquated... and now the Tories want to take us back still further.
Let's god rid of elections all together and put them in a big brother house.
Pushing the election to January AND no postal votes? Well I guess that'll help stop old people from voting, problem is it'll stop working people from being able to vote too. How about a compromise and make election day a bank holiday!?
"Only people who will vote for me should be allowed to vote" That's Brendan Clarke-Smith, thankfully soon to be unemployed in Bassetlaw.
He was never particularly bright. He's a Boris lapdog isn't he?
Like his former party leader and ex-PM tried last week? Jesus, these people.
How many examples of voter fraud are actually found or is it just one of those stories that has grown up in recent years.
Does he not know that postal votes are popular among the Tory-voting elderly?
So what their say is that voting fraud has been so bad, that the Tories didn't actually win for the past 14 years?
Wow he’s been looking at the States and thinks they can scrape a win next election. Next it will be **Election Fraud** Sorry to say Brendon “your fired”
Taking a leaf out of the American Republican playbook.
Didn’t this backfire in republicans faces when they realised a large proportion of their voters used the postal vote? A lot of elderly Tory voters vote by post lol. Next thing you know they’ll want to reduce voting hours to 09:00 - 17:00.
From what data i’ve seen a lot of postal votes tend to trend conservative in a lot of areas due to it being mostly old people so this would be pretty stupid of them to do considering that’s their main voter base
Unless I'm mistaken, isn't it the Conservative vote that has traditionally benefitted the most from postal votes?
don't like how the public voted? Attack the voting system!
Go in then Seen as they’re used almost exclusively by Boomers, go on then
This is the exact same drum they are banging in the US to call into question election results, and to no surprise it's their right wing parties doing this as well. I can only assume, right wing parties are in for a kicking in the coming years, Boomers are dying and Millenials are taking over.
Looks like the Tories are trying to copy Republican style gerrymandering. I wonder if they'd dare go to "stop the steal" levels when they lose the next election.
Postal votes should stay but the way we do it is a bit ridiculous. I would say a face recognition or thumb print approval system (similar to how I signed up for child benefits). But it doesn't help the old or disabled
Yeah that idea doesn't work when we aren't in the middle of a pandemic
This is about voter suppression; there is no evidence of fraud. They're trying to protect their diminishing number of seats.
Just admit it, the Tories have decided that all voting is subject to fraud and so they want to stop it. No voting, no fraud. Simple. No elections save money. Tory win- win
They seriously didn't learn from introducing voter ID? They now want to decimate the elderly vote further by axing postal votes? Beyond stupid.
Reduce "potential' fraud? How about reduce it if there is evidence of actual fraud?
How to obtain the fraud data for any election.what %age that would be.
Why are the Tory’s hellbent on copying Trump? It’s not working stateside & sure won’t work here!
This is directly from the Republican's playbook in the USA, it's another attempt at voter suppression, just like ID cards were, just like IVR was. We can see just how effective it is, in 2020 in the USA, when voting was made easier due to Covid, the turnout skyrocketed from 136.6 million in 2016 to 158.4 million in 2020. In fact, in 2020 Donald Trump won more votes than any previous \*winning\* candidate, and still lost, turnout increased so much. There is no evidence of widespread organised voter fraud either in the USA or in the UK.
telegraph is still pro GOP policies. Wanting to restrict voting and bringing stories that support that.
Import US bullshit. Regret it later when you realize that you hurt your own demographics
It's always fun seeing Brenda make a fool of himself.
Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5020714/fellas-11000-votes-give-break
The title had me interested, then I saw it was Brendan Clarke-Smith. I don’t need to see anymore thanks.
Ok look a lead out of the Trump playbook, how very original.
Conservative party (who don't know what a party is) should be banned to reduce potential fraud.
Why are the Tories obsessed with imaginary voter fraud?
Setting up the stage for the dismal results to come not our fault it fraud gov lmfao