It's a familiar story by now. There's an election, and the governing party doesn't want to take any chances. So, they fix it - in this case, by setting up a "vote-rigging factory" to abuse the newly introduced postal ballot system. The result was described as "massive, systematic and organised fraud" which "would disgrace a banana republic".
But what's really surprising is that this didn't happen in some Central Asian despotism or benighted African tyanny; it happened in the UK. Birmingham, to be precise. Six Labour concillors didn't want to take any chances about their election in recent local body elections, and so fixed the vote. Yesterday, the fixed election was overturned, and a new poll ordered - but the judge also harshly criticised the UK's postal ballot system as being "hopelessly insecure". Naturally, it will be being used in the UK's upcoming general election. Hopefully it will be subjected to a little more scrutiny this time...
I couldn't agree more. The secret ballot was brought in for this very reason - to ensure that votes could not be traded. That reason still stands today.
ReplyDeletePostal voting, at least for Parliament, should be the exception not the rule.