I posted recently about the monumental scale of postal ballot fraud organised by New Labour in 2005 in Blackburn.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/05/electoral_fraud.html
I have irrefutable evidence that this is happening again, and New Labour are engaged yet again in criminal electoral activity in Jack Straw’s constituency.
Michael Poultney, New Labour sub-agent for the North West Region Euro Election, has written to the Electoral Commission to complain that the rules governing the discarding ot torn ballots inadvertently favour the BNP.
http://www.blackburnlabour.org/blog/Torn-postal-ballots-advantage-the-BNP.html
In doing so, Poultney reveals he has been looking at the postal ballots and seeing how people voted.
I have noticed that a few postal voters have cut or torn their ballot papers only submitting the portion of each paper in line with their marked X.
But party scrutineers are specifically banned from seeing where the “marked X” is when postal ballots are opened.
The rules on this are very strict and could not be clearer. Nobody is allowed to see how the postal ballots are cast until they are counted with the others – not least because at the opening of postal ballots, they are accompanied by signed forms identifying the voter.
This is the rule on opening postal ballots. It could not possibly be clearer:
candidates and agents should not make any attempt to see how any individual ballot paper is marked, nor make any attempt to take notes on how ballot papers are marked. In any event, all ballot papers will be kept with the voting side face down and so it will not be possible to see how the postal voters have voted
See Chapter 5 para 15 of the Electoral Commission’s Guide.
How then did Poultney know where the vote was on these ballot papers?
That is the law, and plainly Poultney – and very probably the Blackburn returning officer – has broken the law. I know from experience as a candidate in Blackburn that if you are not New Labour, you certainly won’t get to see how postal ballots are cast. The local returning officer is, of course, the New Labour chief executive of the New Labour borough council and the people actually opening the ballots are employees of the New Labour borough council.
Anybody who thinks that deep political corruption begins only at Westminster is a fool.
UPDATE
In response to New Labour commenters trying to defend this, look at Poultney’s letter quoted above again and read it carefully.
I have noticed that a few postal voters have cut or torn their ballot papers only submitting the portion of each paper in line with their marked X.
It is obvious that he has been looking at a number of ballot papers, and knows where the X is and that they have torn the paper in line with it – ie, rather than for example tear the paper in half a good way below their X. So he is definitely looking at who postal voters are voting for, (and not just the BNP voters). That is simply illegal – you can’t spin it away.
For goodness sake, New Labour have had Blackburn councillors jailed for postal vote fraud. The place stinks of corruption. The ex council leader, Lord Taylor of Blackburn, has just been suspended from the House of Lords for corruption. Stop acting all innocent.
UPDATE 2
Having been exposed, Poultney has now hurriedly added this lie in comments after his letter:
I have not referred to marks made by voters, only to the ‘official mark’. This is an icon at the top of the ballot to ensure that it has been printed properly. This is completely different from the marks made by voters to indicate their choice of candidate.
As lies go, that is completely unconvincing. Poulter wrote originally:
I have noticed that a few postal voters have cut or torn their ballot papers only submitting the portion of each paper in line with their marked X.
In that sentence, “their” plainly does refer to the voters, and we all know what “Their marked X” refers to on a ballot paper. On top of which, the official icon he now says he was referring to is not an X.
Michael Poultney. New Labour electoral cheat and transparent liar.
.
Regarding those now-you-see-them, now-you-don’t web pages allow me to recommend Zotero. This is an add-on for Firefox which allows you to store, index and annotate web pages for research purposes. It’s free, and indispensable.
http://www.zotero.org/
Michael,
I am afraid both the local police and the local media in Blackburn are 100 per cent in Jack Straw’s pocket. I have long bitter experience of this.
Dear Craig
Here is the reply to the world from Michael Poultney.
“In response to a couple of emails we’ve had – I think there is some confusion here, please allow me to clarify. I have not referred to marks made by voters, only to the ‘official mark’. This is an icon at the top of the ballot to ensure that it has been printed properly. This is completely different from the marks made by voters to indicate their choice of candidate.
There is nothing improper about this at all. One doesn’t actually have to see the paper at all as we have been told this is the situation by the Electoral Registration Officer. Indeed, we are aware of a number of complaints on this issue from across the country”.
I would draw people’s attention to this part of his post;
“I have noticed that a few postal voters have cut or torn their ballot papers only submitting the portion of each paper in line with their marked X”.
Then he writes;
“One doesn’t actually have to see the paper at all as we have been told this is the situation by the Electoral Registration Officer”.
Two versions which don’t match up. He writes he saw the ballots then writes he was told.
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
My only surprise is that people are surprised. I was called by a parish priest when I was politically engaged in Lanarkshire to have it explained to him how the local Labour party (who had been round to see him )knew how he had voted the previous day.
We take too much on trust. It is perfectly possible to match up votes with voters if you have adequate access but that requires connivance at electoral returning office level.
Postal voting as presently organised is a recipe for fraud.
The Labour Party’s greatest success in recent years has been in dampening calls for a proper enquiry into the Glenrothes result and the highly convenient misplacing of the marked up registers and voting papers (weighing in total about 2 cwt) which were sent to the Sheriff Court at Kirkcaldy for the required years public access and somehow lost.
Word is there was over 9500 postal votes at the Glenrothes by election instead of the usual 2000 – 3000 and it also has been suggested that Labour canvassers were going round with postal voting forms already filled.
The SNP asked to check the marked up registers a few days after the election. Marked up registers are the only safeguard against personation. If they are lost there is no way of knowing if the election was properly conducted. It took over two months for the Sheriff Court to tell the SNP they had been “lost”.
Excellent post, Mr Hill.
As you know, the extent of corruption we see nationally is mirrored in what we see in local politics.
http://tinyurl.com/9ku9t7
All you can do is keep on fighting.
Blackburn and Jersey seem to have something in common.
In Jersey, two candidates have been charged and sentenced for helping constituents, who could not otherwise vote, merely apply for postal votes.
And Jack Straw is responsible for good governance in the crown dependencies.
“No connection with the other crook across the road”?
My secondary school English teacher explained the grammatical meaning of this phrase to me long ago.
Self-incrimination. A beauty.
Here in Lancashire the arrogance of the local Labour Party organisations is understood. And in at least one area they have refused (so far) to instruct Party workers on a statement on postal votes issued by the Returning Officer. The locally resident Liberal Democrat Peer Tony Greaves has, for many years, been actively working to draw attention to and prevent Electoral corruption through abuse of the Postal Vote.
Meanwhile the Association of Chief Police Officers has a policy Guidance on Preventing and detecting Electoral Malpractice available on its website at
http://www.acpo.police.uk/asp/policies/Data/Guidance%20on%20Preventing%20and%20Detecting%20Electoral%20Malpractice.doc
The emphasis of purpose is prevention rather than prosecution. Perhaps unread in Blackburn.
It is strange that you can infer that I am a New Labour commenter – incorrectly by the way (but never mind Stalin also inferred that all his opponents were Trotskyists) – but that you don’t allow the Labour Agent to make a perfectly reasonable inference as to where the marked X is by reference to the length of the torn ballot paper. And even if he did see the marked X, the law would seem quite clear that it is the returning officer he committed the offence, unless you can demonstrate that the front of the paper was exposed as a result of the agent’s attempts to view it.
I find it somewhat strange that someone who usually believes in the concept of innocent until proven guilty, cannot see that this should also be the case with his enemies as well as his friends.
I have just seen a blog where the BNP are claiming that the seals on ballot boxes have been broken in Bromley.
Apparently they have photographic evidence of the tampering, which has been ignored by local council officials and police alike.
I am really scared for the future of my kids in this country as our leaders are corrupt, and any government that tampers with the ballot box, removes us from the list of democratic nations, and lumps us with the politically failed nations of this world.
At the verification of the postal votes,
party agents such as myself are allowed to inspect the reverse of the ballot papers to check that the number on the back corresponds with that on the front of the relevant envelope A – after the postal voter’s statement declaring his/her identity has been taken to another location making sure that the elector cannot be identified.
Any torn paper to be rejected for being incomplete will be removed before this can take place as it will not bear a number. Any acceptable cut or torn paper(for position number 1) will be added to the pile of potential ones for scanning – in those circumstances it is sadly evident where the cross must be as these are the only ones accepted under the Electoral Commission’s current guidelines. Printing the numbers lower down on the ballot will remove this advantage since then any papers bearing just that section would then be rejected for want of official mark. I am quite prepared to explain this situation to the Police if necessary.
With uncut and untorn postal ballots – these are removed face down preventing agents from seeing the position of the votes.