Candidates go to court over fiasco of postal ballot
By Jill Sherman and Sam Coates
The Times
June 12, 2004
Original here

AN INDEPENDENT candidate in John Prescott's Hull constituency is mounting the first legal challenge to Thursday's election results after a postal ballot fiasco in his ward were he narrowly lost a seat.

Hours later a Liberal Democrat candidate said that he intended to contest his result in Birmingham amid widespread allegations of electoral fraud involving postal votes.

The two legal challenges are likely to be the first of many from candidates claiming that postal voting delays or electoral fraud hurt their chances.

The Liberal Democrats and the Tory party had said that legal challenges would be mounted after the chaos of printing errors and delays which marked the first mass compulsory postal ballot experiment. Although turnout was much higher in postal ballot regions -- 44 per cent against 37 per cent for the rest of the country -- the recriminations are likely to lead to radical changes in the scheme.

John Consindine, the Independent candidate in Hull, was beaten by seven votes by John Cornworth, a candidate for the UKIP, after five recounts. Mr Cornworth doubled the size of his vote from previous years to become the first UKIP councillor.

Mr Consindine claims that adminstrative failures in delivering and collecting the postal ballot results may have influenced the results in the Derringham ward in Kingston-upon-Hull.

Chris Jarvis, leader of the Independents in Hull, claimed that more than 200 postal ballot papers had been misdirected from Marfleet ward.

He also claimed that 140 ballot papers went missing between the time they were received by the council's returning officer and when the results were declared early on Friday. Mr Jarvis said that some ballot papers had ended up in the counting rooms of other wards.

"Only three or four days before polling day, postal ballot papers were arriving in Derringham which were marked for Marfleet. When people rang up the council they were told they could come in to get a new form or could turn up at one of the "delivery and assistance" points on polling day. Nobody knows the actual number of papers delivered in error or how many were rectified," said Mr Jarvis.

"More worrying is that at 5pm yesterday the returning officer claimed that 3,540 papers had been returned. But when the results were announced they fell short by 140."

Mr Consindine now has to file a petition to the Elections Petitions Office at the Royal Courts of Justice within 21 days. If the judge considers the election is invalid it could be rerun on a ward, council or regional basis. John Didrichsen, chief executive of Hull and returning officer, claimed that the count and declarations were carried out correctly. "Any complaints will be thoroughly investigated. If there is to be any legal challenge to the way the election was conducted I am confident we can present a strong case."

Yesterday's declaration in Birmingham was held up for hours because of allegations of fraud in one ward. A candidate in another ward said before the full results came in that he would mount a legal challenge over his own contest.

Ayoub Khan, who lost in Aston, said that political practices more usually seen in Bangladesh and Pakistan had been commonplace in this year's city council election. He believes postal voting should not be available in areas with large Asian communities.

Mr Khan was a candidate standing in Aston, where a Labour councillor, Mohammed Kazi, was caught going through ballot papers in his car on an industrial estate at midnight. Mr Kazi, who was interviewed by police, was elected. "There has been abuse of the new postal system brought in to increase turnout. All it has done is increase the number of fraudulent votes. It is a kick in the teeth for democracy," Mr Khan said.

Legal threat over 'photo finish' in Hull after postal forms go astray: Raised turnout could be due to 'novelty' factor
by Kevin Maguire
The Guardian
Saturday June 12, 2004
Original here

The first court challenge to the controversial system of blanket postal voting was threatened last night in John Prescott's backyard.

A group of independent councillors in Hull, the power base of the deputy prime minister, who masterminded the experiment, announced they were to take legal advice over a disputed knife-edge result.

The independents claimed scores of homes failed to receive ballot papers in the city's Derringham ward where, after six recounts, their standard-bearer lost by just seven votes to the United Kingdom Independence party.

Chris Jarvis, the leader of Hull's independent group, said: "We will be seeking legal advice and contacting the Electoral Commission to see what avenues of appeal we have."

The abolition of ballot boxes in three northern regions and the East Midlands has been marred by chaos and confusion with the Electoral Commission, a government-appointed group, promising to publish a review in September.

Widespread concern has been expressed about the security of the 14m-plus postal votes in the four areas, with two arrests made in Oldham of men who offered to "look after" ballot papers. In Burnley a suspiciously high number of proxies are to be examined.

Lancashire and Greater Manchester police are investigating claims that people were bullied into handing over blank ballot papers to party canvassers. Similar reports surfaced in Bradford.

Emergency polling booths were opened in Bolton when 6,000 papers were never delivered while a number of councils admitted a significant minority of witness forms were incorrectly completed, invalidating votes.

However, the postal initiative, allied with holding European elections on the same day as council elections, did help to increase the turnout which by lunchtime yesterday was about 40%, up around 9% on a year ago across England and Wales.

The jump of 13% in postal voting regions compared with around 7% elsewhere prompting some ministers to claim the pitfalls were more than compensated by a big jump in the numbers voting.

In Sunderland, however, turnout dropped to 40% from 47% recorded last year when postal balloting was also used in the council elections, suggesting improvements may be down to the "novelty" factor.

There appeared to be no initial evidence that Labour had benefited from the introduction of postal voting.

Howard Bernstein, returning officer in the north-west postal area, said the improved turnout had justified the move. He dismissed as "glitches" the fraud allegations and delivery problems of recent weeks.

Labour MP Bruce George, who presides over an organisation that monitors elections across Europe, warned against complacency: "I am not suggesting the whole system is bent. If there is abuse it is at the margins. But whole elections can be won or lost in a handful of constituencies."

The pilot scheme was hastily implemented after peers delayed legislation, arguing only two regions should have been piloted. Ministers will decide whether to repeat or extend the experiment after receiving the commission's report, or await technological developments to introduce electronic voting.