Anthony Barnett (London, OK): The BBC tells us that it has taken the Council of Europe to draw up a full report (opens as pdf) which confirms it is "childishly simple" to forge postal ballots here and that the UK voting system is wide open to fraud. For a summary of the links see the Jurist. Back in April 2005 Richard Mawrey, a Birmingham judge, compared Britain to a "banana republic" when he concluded that there had been widespread fraud in six council seats won by Labour. The BBC reported at the time,
He accused the government of being not only complacent, but "in denial", about the failings of the system.
It was nearly three years ago! The BBC report continues and it is well worth a few seconds:
It did not help that the ballot envelopes were easily identifiable in the post, he said.
"Short of writing 'Steal Me' on the envelopes, it is hard to see what more could be done to ensure their coming into the wrong hands," Mr Mawrey added.
The judge said he regretted the government had dismissed recent warnings about the system's failings as "scaremongering".
He pointed to a government statement which said: "The systems already in place to deal with the allegations of electoral fraud are clearly working."
Mr Mawrey said: "Anybody who has sat through the case I have just tried and listened to evidence of electoral fraud that would disgrace a banana republic would find this statement surprising... The systems to deal with fraud are not working well, they are not working badly. The fact is that there are no systems to deal realistically with fraud and there never have been. Until there are, fraud will continue unabated."
The question is - what happened next? What was done about it? Is the government's real guiding slogan: "So it goes".
