The Silence of the Electoral Commission lambs

Daily Telegraph
22/04/2005
Second-class democracy

We want an Electoral Commission that roars and frightens the political elite corrupting our democracy. Instead we get the silence of Sam Younger's lambs.

Postal votes are assuming an ominous importance in this election. Applications for these votes in marginal seats have soared, in some instances to three or four times the number granted in 2001. It would be comforting to attribute this to the disinclination of some to use their legs or unduly to put themselves out.

That, after all, is fundamentally why this Government brought the postal vote within reach of all. It feared a reluctant turnout on polling day. It reckoned that Labour had most to lose from this, and so had most to gain from the artificial stimulus of a vote that can be filled in at home.

The Electoral Commission accepted this, but urged certain precautions, some of which ministers have rejected or ignored.

It follows that there is a disturbingly wide gap between the measures taken against fraud in previous elections and the margin left for cheating in this one.

The way of dealing with votes cast at the polling booth was slow but sure. The total of votes had to be counted before any sorting began. The number of votes given to each candidate, added together, had to match that figure. It rendered the smuggling of votes in or out of the count impossible. All this was under the watchful eye of the returning officer.

In this election we have an Electoral Commission code of conduct that discourages but cannot prevent party campaigners from touching postal votes.

"Hopelessly insecure" was how an election court judge described the system after the fraudulent Birmingham elections. He was critical, too, of ministers who described warnings about risks attached to the present system as "scaremongering". They still do so. The risks remain.

So it may well be that, as the election results come tumbling out late on May 5 and early next day, the talking point will not be who is winning but who has been cheating. There could well be a flood of demands for a replay. The Prime Minister, seeking to win advantage, has made a rod for his own back.

There is another consideration. We are likely to have the Warsaw-based Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights here to monitor this general election.

How humiliating that is for a country that has supposed it was a model for those aspiring to parliamentary democracy, once a beacon of light to those who suffer from rigged elections.