We Can Send A Message, But Will It Be Heard?

The UK’s last election in 2005 was so dodgy it was described by EU monitors as as befitting a banana republic: in the city of Bradford alone, 252 allegations of fraud were made.

Well, it’s election day again in the UK for the Scots and Welsh assemblies and English local authorities and such is the general pissed-offness of the electorate it’s anybody’s guess just how big the New Labour bloodbath will be. Having been one of those deluded people who helped New Labour to victory in 1997, there’s nothing I want to see more now than them totally wiped off the electoral landscape and the ground where they stood sown with salt. That may well be what the rest of the electorate want too – but how will we know, with so many doubts about the trustworthiness of the results? Birmingham 2005:

[…]

Vote-riggers exploited weaknesses in the postal voting system to steal thousands of ballot papers and mark them for Labour, helping the party to take first place in elections to Birmingham City Council.

They believed that their cheating would be hidden for ever in the secrecy of the strong boxes where counted votes are stored, never suspecting that a judge would take the rare step of smashing the seals and tracing the ballots back to the voters. Election corruption has been so rare in the past 100 years that lawyers have struggled to find examples since the late 19th century, when Britain was adjusting to the novelty of universal male suffrage.

The elections last June were the dirtiest since the general election of 1895, when Sir Tankerville Chamberlayne, the Conservative candidate for Southampton, notoriously travelled by cart from pub to pub, waving and throwing sovereigns at the crowds. His election was later ruled invalid.

The Birmingham vote- riggers were more cunning than the flamboyant Sir Tankerville. They coldly exploited communities where many cannot speak English or write their names. They forced what the judge called “dishonest or frightened” postmen into handing over sacks of postal ballots. They seem to have infiltrated the mail service: several voters gave evidence that their ballot papers were altered to support Labour after they put them in the post.

Proof that votes were stolen came when Richard Mawrey, QC, the election commissioner, ordered ballot boxes to be unsealed. Unknown to most voters, ballot papers can be traced back to individuals through serial numbers. The judge was struck by how many had been amended, sometimes using correction fluid.

Voters were traced and asked if they really had voted Labour. It emerged that some had handed completed postal ballots to Labour supporters calling at their homes offering to post them. The envelopes had been opened and the papers altered, then delivered to the election office for counting.

Birmingham is only one of the places where postal vote fraud happened and they were only caught because they were so blatant. More than 20,000 postal voters have since dropped off the register in the Birmingham wards investigated over fraud; in Aston and Bordesley Green wards – which were the focus of the investigation – the number of postal voters this year is down by 80%. It’s estimated, the BBC reports, that at least 5% of all nationwide postal votes this time round will have to be discarded becuse of suspicion of fraud.

But the government is adamant that their wonderful new electronic checking system for postal voting will eliminate any problems. Uh-huh.

When their activists were caught red-handed all over the country trying to subvert the election after the government had deliberately ignored the Electoral Commission’s advice not to go ahead with increased postal voting because of the potential for fraud, New Labour hurriedly put foward their usual knee-jerk response: a brace of new regulations. These were cleverly designed to be face-saving for them and incorporate “look over there, oooh-shiny technology!” which would of course need to be bought in, so that their pals did well too.

This is what we got:

The 2007 election marks another significant test for e-voting technologies since the UK began a voting modernisation programme in 2000. The programmes, however, have raised the same concerns over privacy, security and the ability to perform recounts as other e-voting systems deployed worldwide.

A variety of systems will be tested, including electronic scanning of votes and internet and telephone voting. The Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) has published details of the 12 pilot plans for 13 administrative areas.

[…]

Under close watch this election season will be software used to verify ballots from postal voting across England and Wales. Once voters are registered, they can cast their votes and send the ballot through the mail. Postal voting is seen as a way to make it easier for people to participate in elections but has been criticised as susceptible to fraud.

This year, special equipment, called postal vote identifiers, will be used to compare a voter’s signature on the voter registration form and the signature on the ballot as well as the voter’s birth date. The DCA has allotted up to £12.2 million for the equipment. One of the vendors is Northgate Information Solutions, which is providing equipment for 75 local authorities.

Northgate’s majority shareholder is General Atlantic LLC, a global private equity firm. New Labour is very fond of private equity firms; not only do they drool in the presence of obscene personal wealth, they’re drawn to private equity’s opacity to scrutiny. But that’s by the by.

In common with any given UK.gov IT project, it has issues:

However, concerns have been raised over the accuracy and speed of the equipment. A DCA spokesman said if a postal vote identifier detects anomalies between signatures, the ballot will be reviewed by an election official.

And if those anomalies are multiple, in their hundreds? What then?

Many areas have yet to test their new software and returning officers, though putting a brave face on it, are reportedly not happy. Scotland’s count will be a particular problem.

This year for the first time Scotland will replace manual counting with electronic counting, which it says will produce results by the next afternoon after the election. The e-counting services will be provided by DRS Data Service, the UK’s only e-counting software vendor.

(An interesting data point: guess who’s a non-executive director of DRS Data Services plc? Former labour leader Neil Kinnock.)

Already a proportionnof the Scots electorate has lost their vote but no-one in charge seems particularly bothered:

BBC May 1: Voting concerns as papers delayed

Postal voters at home and abroad fear they may have lost the chance to vote in the Scottish elections because of a delay in delivering ballot papers. Production and distribution problems have been blamed, with forms failing to arrive at homes ahead of Thursday. The problem has been highlighted in areas including Aberdeenshire and the Borders ahead of Thursday’s elections. The Electoral Commission’s Andy O’Neill admitted that some people could miss out but the vast majority would not.

Only some? Oh well, that’s all right then.

The SNP has been showing signs of hammering Labour candidates, a disaster for wannabe PM Gordon Brown and his Scottish Labour Party power base.. But if the result is close, if the SNP narrowly beat Labour(or vice versa) expect calls for an enquiry into the validity of the count. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see a large number of results contested nationwide, such is the damage done to the credibility of the voting system by New Labour.

It’s started already in some places:

Birmingham Post: Lib Dems accuse opponents of ‘dirty tricks’

May 2 2007 By Neil Connor, Chief Reporter

Liberal Democrats in Birmingham last night accused their political opponents of dirty tricks after a councillor and a local election candidate were arrested in a postal votes fraud inquiry.

Coun Zaker Choudhry, who was elected to the Bordesley Green ward last year, and Mohammed Saeed, who is standing in the ward in tomorrow’s elections, were released last night on police bail.

The arrests again raise the spectre of corruption claims marring the local election polls.

[…]

Senior Liberal Democrats last night voiced anger at the timing of the arrests and at what they described as a “set up”.

There’s a cult of the strong leader and a mentality of entitlement to power that’s been cultivated in the Labour party: so much so that many actvists think that if you can’t win a seat, steal it. It’s all about undermining the sovereignty of the people. If the voting system can’t be trusted and the electorate can’t be trusted with the vote, ergo democracy itself can’t be trusted either. A strong, centralising authoritarian leader or party’s what’s best for the country.

It’s fascinating isn’t it, how Blair and Brown’s New Labour palely reflects Bush & Cheney’s GOP, in their very own peculiarly flabby and incompetent British way.