London Letter: Mounting fears of fraud ahead of general election

Conservative MP Andrew Stephenson’s Pendle constituency in Lancashire is a key marginal battleground in the forthcoming battle in May, where he is defending a 3,500 majority over Labour.

Last month, Stephenson raised fears in the House of Commons, not about the usual twists and turns of politics but rather that the issue could be decided by electoral fraud.

“Sadly, in Pendle, allegations of postal vote fraud are nothing new, with the dubious actions of certain Labour councillors being reported to the national press as far back as 2002,” he complained.

His constituency is one of 17 identified by the electoral commission as being at risk of fraud. They also include Tower Hamlets in East London, which has the highest population of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis in Britain.

The others are Birmingham, Blackburn with Darwen, Bradford, Burnley, Calderdale, Coventry, Derby, Hyndburn, Kirklees, Oldham, Peterborough, Slough, Walsall,Woking and Luton.

The problem is not confined to South Asian communities, the commission says, but there is a particular issue within them – based on family hierarchies, poor English and disconnection from wider local society.

Under existing rules, voters merely have to produce their voting card at polling stations. Often they are not even asked for that, as polling staff tick off names from the electoral roll, even in cities where they do not know the voters.

However, the biggest weakness lies with postal votes. In 2010, more than one in seven of those who voted in the general election did so by postal vote, but the number will be higher in May.

Two years ago, nearly 60 per cent of those who voted in the South Shields byelection – the one prompted by the departure of Labour's David Miliband for New York – did so by post.

Stricter guidelines

Everyone involved knows the weaknesses. In 2010, The Irish Times accompanied canvassers in one Bangladeshi-dominated district where they did not bother to talk to the women, for example. The men

filled in the postal votes.

Now the commission is proposing stricter guidelines for postal voting, especially to ensure political parties are not allowed know which voters are going to vote by postal ballot – crucial information under current rules.

“A significant feature of recent convictions for electoral fraud is that a relatively high proportion of those secured since 2000 have involved wards with sizable Pakistani and/or Bangladeshi communities,” it said.

“Almost all of the cases since 2000 that have resulted in multiple convictions and have found evidence of large-scale fraud have shared this characteristic,” it went on, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of identifying any community by name.

Helpful at a price

The community networks

in south Asian communities are helpful to many recent immigrants – help with languages, for example; but the help comes at a price, sometimes an unacceptable one.

“[They] tend to be reciprocal, and are hierarchical and patriarchal, which may undermine the principle of voters’ individual and free choice through a range of social pressures such as respect for the decision of the elders [to put it] at its mildest,” the commission said.

Detailed research carried out by NatCen Social Research found that a lack of clarity existed across all communities about what was acceptable behaviour and, crucially, what was electoral fraud.While there was a consensus, for example, that bribery and taking a vote without someone’s permission were clear-cut cases of fraud, there was less certainty about other activities.

Sometimes voters were canvassed repeatedly, leaving them feeling intimidated. Sometimes their lack of reading skills was exploited. Less commonly there were threats or use of force.

The high-risk districts have certain characteristics in common: a high density of people from the same family or ethnicity living close together; lack of opportunities; and community tensions that may intensify loyalties.

Sometimes, part of the responsibility for problems lies with Labour and the Tories, who have often “been only too happy to accept this middle-man role of kinship networks”, said a study produced for the commission.

“There may also be some perception in these communities that some electoral fraud is in fact a ‘soft’ form of breach of law or that it may be a necessary evil,” the research prepared by the University of Liverpool and the University of Manchester said.

“Pakistani and Bangladeshi immigrants have often been greeted by a chilly reception from local political forces and, as like other migrant groups seeking political recognition, often only managed to come to be represented in local politics through coming together,” it added.