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'Britons' confidence knocked by ballot fraud'
Public confidence in Britain's elections has been undermined by questions of postal ballot fraud, says EC chairman.
Public confidence in Britain's elections has been undermined by questions of postal ballot fraud, the head of the election watchdog said Friday.
"I think what is absolutely clear is that postal voting has knocked the public's confidence in the system," said Sam Younger, chairman of the Electoral Commission.
Younger, speaking to BBC radio after the Labour Party won a historic third consecutive victory in a general election Thursday, urged Prime Minister Tony Blair and his future government to undertake reforms to improve fraud prevention and detection.
He also said he was disappointed that the government had not carried out reforms recommended by the commission ahead of the vote.
"It is urgent, it seems to me now, that the government ... will actually see as a high priority looking to implement a number of changes, many of which we have had in the public domain and recommended for the past two years, to underpin the security and the administration of the system," Younger said.
Those changes, he added, included improving voter registration and clarifying the definition of electoral fraud in order to aid prosecution of criminals.
The specter of postal ballot fraud hung over this year's election, as a record 6.5 million of 44 million eligible voters -- some 15 percent -- registered to use the mail-in ballot system first introduced ahead of the 2001 vote.
Recent cases of fraud exposed in Birmingham, central England, and Blackburn, near Manchester in the northwest, significantly eroded public confidence, according to opinion polls, while candidates traded charges during campaigning that rival parties were tampering with the system.
A challenger to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in Blackburn is writing to the Electoral Commission to report widespread vote rigging, according to the British press.
