Monday, May 18, 2009

How Might Postal Votes Decide the Euro Elections?

One thing which few people have thought about is how postal votes might play a big part in the rise of the minor parties at the European Elections. I am told that in North Norfolk 15% of the voters now have postal votes and in other areas it is even higher.

Postal vote ballot papers apparently start landing on people's doormats on Friday. Expect many of them to be returned immediately, and expect them to be full of Xs by the name of minor party candidates - or spoilt.

One MEP candidate who just phoned me told me of almost uncontrolled anger on the part of many people. There's also a suspicion that half the people who say they are going to vote UKIP actually intend to vote for the BNP but are too ashamed to admit it.

I don't think anyone quite understands the forces which have been unleashed here.

43 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes the BNP voters hiding behind UKIP identification would not surprise me.

From a strategic sense UKIP have played MP expenses to their advantage as i am sure UKIP had a problem with MEP expenses in the last 5 years!

Westminster seems to ironically blotted out the stain on UKIP's reputation.

RantinRab said...

Just got a few leaflets through the letter box. The liebore one invites you to ask them a question! Text LABOUR followed by your question to 60022. Go on, I know you want to!

Plato said...

Blimey, internet sites are going down in spades due to traffic volumes.

PB has been down for ages and even BBC New Channel is off air in my area of SE 'no nodes available'.

Guess Mr Speaker is proving newsworthy!

Richard Jones said...

Labour quite like postal votes. Like them a lot.

Anonymous said...

We all know that Labour forge postal votes anyway.

Oh look, it's a by-election where labour are predicted to lose! But what's this? They've won by a tiny margin? And the number of postal votes has gone through the roof? My my, what a coincidence!..

UKIPPER (non-racist) said...

Another snide attempt to smear UKIP and their supporters by association. Risible, desperate stuff.

Mark said...

On topic i'm not sure i trust postal votes, they are way to open to fixing.

Off topic.

Once upon a time, many moons ago when the post office was a public service we(the union)refused to handle election material for the BNP.

Now that we are all but in name privatised and the union is utterly powerless we apparently have no problem taking the BNP money and delivering their leaflets.

Funny how things work out.

Lee H said...

Plato

And they say the fun and interest has gone out of politics!!

Anonymous said...

Plato - I had noticed that with PB - So i just come and post on Iain's site!

I was thinking of doing some more pictures for my site but have a headache!

Peter Thomas said...

You said: "There's also a suspicion that half the people who say they are going to vote UKIP actually intend to vote for the BNP but are too ashamed to admit it".

I doubt that very much. Where's your evidence for such a disgraceful statement? That's a dreadful smear on the electorate of this country. I'm very annoyed with you for saying such a thing. The electorate are, in the main, honest; unlike our MPs who are where they are today for treating the electorate with this kind of contempt. Bloody well apologise.

Anonymous said...

Sky News has reports that the Labour Chief Whip expenses are next!

Can he suspend himself from the PLP in the worst case scenrio????

Anonymous said...

Iain, I live in Spain, but I would LOVe to send a vote back, how can I find out how to do it ?

Can Philip Hollobone have it ?

Lee H said...

This is what happens when people get angry, they lash out. They listen to people who tell them that they should be scared, that the current political class are not defending there values and needs, that all things bad in there life is their fault and that they should be punished. Then they are told that a vote for us is a vote for change, a stand, a point that they will hear and will take notice of. Anger is a vote winner, but look at who it is a winner for and look at how it is gained, Fear!

New Labour Bradford said...

Anonymous

We have already voted on your behalf. Allah Akbar

Anonymous said...

"... we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet.
Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget."
GK Chesterton.

Dave S said...

I suspect the electorate will be a trifle adventurous with the EU vote, as a backlash against NuLab refusing the referendum on Europe.

At home, locally and in a GE more conservative voting (that is conservative with a small 'c').

Bardirect said...

Postal votes will work like this:

You turn up to the Polling Station, present your card and and are told:

"I'm sorry Sir/Madam, you've already voted."

When I was a student, some time ago, all the uncollected polling cards which had been delivered for students who had left the year before disappeared on the morning of the election. I always wondered what happened to them. Derek Spencer still won by 7 votes.

Mike Wood said...

Except 4 regions had all postal voting in 2004. Turnout was still under 40% in those regions.

There didn't seem to be any correlation between all postal voting and a rise in UKIP's vote - which ranged from 2.5% - 18.5%

D Saurus said...

I think there are more important things to worry about. It looks like if we don't do something about climate change we will end up like the dinosaurs. (scientists say it was rising sea levels and nothing to do with a giant rock). THis scared me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ3JlBLK0ek

Anonymous said...

Mike Wood!

Is that Mike Wood from West Yorkshire? Labour MP (Mirfield)in the seat next to Mr Malik?

Yorkshire had all postal voting in 2004, funny it was one of the areas that collapsed less than other areas without postal voting!

Malik, will have done Labour huge harm in Dewsbury, Huddersfield, mirfield, Morley and similar areas!

Labour are doomed anyway but what Malik has done through his arrogant and dodgy defence is create a dynmic in the Yorkshire area that could mean a BNP win in Yorkshire!

BNP = Scum!

Mike Wood said...

'fraid not!

Anonymous said...

"funny it was one of the areas that collapsed less than other areas"

i.e. Labour vote collapse.

Labour created universal postal voting to help Labour - that is why they did it no other reason!

Anonymous said...

"I don't think anyone quite understands the forces which have been unleashed here."

I hope you're right. I really do.

Anonymous said...

Well tell your Man Cameron to pull his finger out over Europe. Get off the fence and promise an unconditional referendum.

It really is that simple.

johnAKAmark said...

"there's also a suspicion that half the people who say they are going to vote UKIP actually intend to vote for the BNP but are too ashamed to admit it".

That's an assertion Iain; where's your evidence? I'm voting UKIP because no other party, and especially not Cameron's statist Tory Party lite, has a truly conservative set of policies and an unequivocal stance on withdrawal from the EU. I'm voting UKIP because I'm a libertarian conservative; the BNP are reactionary socialists, quite a different set of instincts I reckon.

Iain Dale said...

The evidence is what the MEP candidate told me, having been out on the stump every day. Which is more than you or I have been I suspect.

ILLIBERAL DEMOCRAT Would youi remove that highly offensive swastika from your Avatar. Even I couldn't accuse them of being Nazis.

johnAKAmark said...

Good point - but I'd have been interested to know what he based his suspicions on

The Grim Reaper said...

So nutters might be pretending to vote for UKIP in order to disguise their intention of voting BNP? It's a tactic which has been used before.

There have certainly been some racist bad apples in the Tory Party over the years, let's not forget. Ann Winterton, anyone?

Anonymous said...

Why would any Conservative wote Conservative in the European elections? I haven't heard one good reason from Cameron so far.

At the the launch of the Conservative European election campaign today, Dave even said that he would not call for Michael Martin to resign, which went down like a lead balloon.

Anonymous said...

Have forgot my password.

Anonymous said...

Have forgotten my password.

jojoko said...

My neighbour is a UKIP member. He reports the local UKIP office is averaging 50 telephone calls a day requesting information packs. This is a rural area with well under 100,00 in the total catchment area. Don't know any BNP members but the local hoodies support them by breaking windows of non-whites or anyone with a foreign background, and threatening to commit acts amounting to murder against anyone of a non-heterosexual preference and trans-sexuals. Another neighbour is a Lesbian who has been targeted by the BNP supporting hoodies as have I because I am non-British by birth. We have no problem with the UKIP member who has given both of us help on numerous occasions. If there is going to be a protest vote, and it looks like that is inevitable,I hope it goes to UKIP rather than the BNP.

Chuffer said...

Mark said:

"Once upon a time, many moons ago when the post office was a public service we(the union)refused to handle election material for the BNP.

Now that we are all but in name privatised and the union is utterly powerless we apparently have no problem taking the BNP money and delivering their leaflets.

Funny how things work out."

You obviously fail to see the irony in your post. You weren't much of a public service if you refused to handle certain material just because you disapproved of it! And what a good thing it is the unions have been emasculated, and you now have to take business from a legal organisation: call me old fashioned, but isn't that what the Post Office is for?

Anonymous said...

The Torys are just blue labour
AND YES ANYTHING IS BETTER THAT BROWN
Ukip for for me and everyone i no is going to vote ukip.
So tell what part off that is hiding behind the BNP......... UTER TOSSH i am a tory that will NOT vote for the EU and Dav love's the EU

Anonymous said...

Methinks you've got this sentence wrong so I've rewritten it:
There's also a suspicion that a tiny percentage of people who say they are going to vote actually intend to vote for Labour or even the Tories but are too ashamed to admit it.

Anonymous said...

Ok sorry my bad
put like that maybe so ...but i stll dont see what the BNP has got to do with ukip.. All over the papers all i ever see is ukip and the bnp the two partys are NOT the same the bnp are evil its like the papers and blogs are trying to mark ukip with death by Association when the party that should be marked with Death by Association are the torys and liebour THERE both on the take and both for the EU

rob's uncle said...

You are quite right to highlight the postal votes, which will be received on Friday; there are 2 points to consider:

1: the response rate [= turnout] on them will be 3-4 times higher than that from non-postals; so they will be > 50 % of the votes in many areas.

2: those that vote do so straight away, i.e. Friday-Sunday of this week, so their choice will be heavily influenced by this week's events and not at all by election propaganda delivered or transmitted after Sunday.

Savonarola said...

The MEP who claims that some UKIP support is intended for BNP will be proved correct. BNP will poll more than the polls show.

Why.

Because BNP, rightly or wrongly, are demonised. When post union talks of non delivery of BNP circulars, you know something is not right with our democracy.

The main recruiter for BNP is NuLabour who have ignored white working class in favour of immigrants and minority groups. That is the way it is. Facts make for uncomfortable reading.

Marian said...

New Labour have previous form on fiddling postal votes: see http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1719968.ece for how they did it in Leeds.
There was also much speculation about the postal votes swung the result in the Glenrothes by-election which took place last year. I'm not sure how many of you are aware that a Northern Ireland based company Opt2Vote was used for their expertise in postal voting. It's the first time this system has been used in Scotland but it has been used in England.
It appears that Opt2vote is a partner company of Northgate, which hosts Labour sites such as www.davethechameleon.com and www.labour.org.uk

The Open Rights Group had this to say about Opt2vote:-
"ORG was unable to examine or verify the servers or systems they used in any meaningful sense. While ORG considers that the physical security for the ES&S and Tata locations was reasonable - and very good for the OPT2VOTE location observed - ORG is unable to comment further on the servers. Without more information on the specifications of the systems and clear rules on the access observers could request in pilot situations, ORG was restricted to what the suppliers were willing to offer or what their clients were willing to support. No matter what access was provided, fundamentally the servers are opaque to the human eye. No observer would be able to examine what the server was doing, what data it was sending and receiving or whether problems were occurring, without detailed technical access to the software and its operating system, yet it would be inappropriate and is clearly against guidelines for observers to handle anything to do with the running of the election. Hence ORG must conclude that the servers and their operations were - and will remain in future elections – unobservable."
The same report says of the Electoral Commission:
"How does DCA or the Electoral Commission know about the extent of electoral fraud when neither of them have kept any statistics nor have undertaken any research on the issue? Is it that, in their obsession with increasing participation at all costs, they have turned a blind eye to the risks of electoral fraud and its consequences on the integrity of our democratic system?"
Private Eye edition No.1233 also had this to say recently:-
“... Meanwhile back in the real world, polling experts are looking with horror at the explosion of under-regulated postal voting that Gordon Brown will allow as he tries to hold on to power. What was once a small part of the electoral process is now a big business. Labour created a company in Londonderry, the illiterately titled Opt2Vote Ltd, which boasts it specialises in designing and delivering a range of solutions to address the changing needs of the UK electoral services market. In three years it has dealt with a staggering 10m postal votes. Mike Smithson, the polling guru who runs the website politicalbetting.com, told the Eye that the fact that postal votes are now a money-making opportunity showed that Labour had created a system beyond the control of returning officers. There were too many postal votes for them to cope with.
‘Returning officers and their staff have local knowledge,’ he said. ‘If 10 people register at a terraced house they know can sleep only three, they will be suspicious. How can a company based in Londonderry spot potential frauds?’
To which the answer is that Labour does not want the ballot processors in Northern Ireland to spot potential frauds, not at least until the next election is safely out of the way. “
Finally, measures introduced to improve choice for voters, such as postal and electronic voting, increase the risk of fraud, according to the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust study.
http://www.jrrt.org.uk/uploads/Purity%20of%20Elections%20in%20the%20UK.pdf
Executive Summary
Purity of Elections in the UK
Key Findings
• Experienced election observers have raised serious concerns about how well UK election procedures measure up to international standards.
• There have been at least 42 convictions for electoral fraud in the UK in the period 2000–2007.
• Greater use of postal voting has made UK elections far more vulnerable to fraud and resulted in several instances of large-scale fraud.
• There is widespread, and justifiable, concern about both the comprehensiveness and the accuracy of the UK’s electoral registers – the poor state of the registers potentially compromises the integrity of the ballot.
• There is a genuine risk of electoral integrity being threatened by previously robust systems of electoral administration having reached ‘breaking point’ as a result of pressures imposed in recent years.
• Public confidence in the electoral process in the UK was the lowest in Western Europe in 1997, and has almost certainly declined further as a result of the extension of postal voting.
• The benefits of postal and electronic voting have been exaggerated, particularly in relation to claims about increased turnout and social inclusion.
• There is substantial evidence to suggest that money can have a powerful impact on the outcome of general elections, particularly where targeted at marginal constituencies over sustained periods of time.
• Outside of ministerial circles, there is a widespread view that a fundamental overhaul of UK electoral law, administration and policy is urgently required.

T England. Raised from the dead. said...

I will quite openly admit that if the BNP were in my area I'd vote for them, as it is I have UKIP to make a protest with.
The thought of the BNP getting loads of seats makes me smile because I know how much it will upset the lefties, in fact, I hope it gives then nightmares, of course the EU & expences comes into it but getting to the lefties will make my year :O)

Anonymous said...

I think postal voters have an advantage over polling station voters. With the list of candidates getting longer and/or more complicated with PR, I think postal voters have time to study the voting paper, rather than come as a shock at the booth.

I put this point to the Electoral Commision, but got a fob off reason that the EC expects the voter to be informed by the candidates. I suggested that every council should have to put up on their website a sample of the voting paper. They would not comment about the advantage the postal voter has.

The EC is another VERY expensive quango, doing a VERY poor job.

Anonymous said...

Please respect the electorate rather than smearing them. What evidence do you have that UKIP supporters are too afraid to say they will vote BNP? Do you really think BNP voters are so sophisticated? My my that really is astute! I am a Tory who will vote UKIP in the Euro's. So perhaps you should say that UKIP voters are too ashamed to admit voting LabConLib?

Unknown said...

where can i get a postal vote.i see theliberal have aonline postal vote where is yours