Pathetic Government: Electoral Tinkering Again
With the approach of the two crucial votes in 2014 – the Euro elections in May and the September referendum in Scotland on separation from the United Kingdom – the Labour party has now come up with the novel idea of extending voting over a whole week in order to “increase public interest in elections”, i.e. maximise Labour’s vote. In the light of this it is useful to recall the words of the judge who has presided over the latest electoral fraud case, as pointed out by Ageing Albion in his comment on his post in November “Postal Vote Fraud still being ignored by government and politicians alike”. He commented: Incidentally here is a longer extract of the Birmingham judgment by Judge Mawrey:
“715. In the course of preparing my judgment, my attention was drawn to what I am told is an official Government statement about postal voting which I hope I quote correctly, as follows:
“There are no proposals to change the rules governing election procedures for the next election, including those for postal voting. The systems already in place to deal with the allegations of electoral fraud are clearly working.”
716. 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. To assert that “The systems already in place to deal with the allegations of electoral fraud are clearly working” indicates a state not simply of complacency but of denial.
717. 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.”
“. . . electoral fraud that would disgrace a banana republic” said Judge Mawrey in 2005. No-one listened and no-one did a thing. When Britain finally collapses, at least we can’t say we weren’t warned.
January 2nd, 2014 at 10:33 am
Did they even mention postal vote fraud and what they would do to fix it? Or is that a stupid question?
I would say the story has disappeared from view, but then again it was never really in view, this website being the only media outlet who was prepared to acknowledge it.
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January 2nd, 2014 at 4:45 pm
The quote was from the 2005 judgment. I forwarded details of that judgment to many mainstream media outlets at the time, and on the odd occasion since, and for the most part drew a blank. The Guardian did run a story (http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/apr/05/politics.localgovernment) which reported the judge’s comments (including the remark that “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”) but did not mention the same cultural/religious/ethnic identity of the perpetrators – not only that, it finished with a quote from the Aston Labour councillors’ solicitor, Chaman Salha, saying it was a “dark day for democracy”!!
Accordingly, almost nine years have thus passed since a judge said: “Britain’s voting system would disgrace a banana republic, with no proper reforms”.
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