Youngsters manning the polling stations at the elections for the district's first youth parliament next week will use invisible ink to prevent people from voting twice.

The hands of thousands of youngsters who are eligible to vote will be stamped with the initials BKYP - standing for Bradford and Keighley Youth Parliament - in invisible ink when they arrive.

Bradford Council Youth Service co-ordinator Norrina Rashid, who is heading the election team, said: "It won't wash off for about three days and they won't be able to see it. But the hands of anyone arriving at a polling station will be examined with an ultra violet scan which would pick it up. That way any attempt to vote twice or more is going to be spotted."

The security measure has been put in place because the young people eligible to vote are aged between 11 and 25 and those below 18 will not be on the electoral register.

Miss Rashid said they were hoping for about 20,000 voters from the 101,000 young people eligible to vote.

But she anticipates the election turn-out will grow in the years ahead.

In the last days of the campaign, leading up to the elections on Tuesday, the young candidates will be in schools, community centres and out on the streets persuading voters they are the best choice for Britain's biggest youth parliament.

There are 50 candidates fighting for six seats in each of the district's five parliamentary constituencies.

But Bradford South is uncontested because there are only two candidates.

The MYPs will sit for two years before the next elections and the non-political winners have been told their views will be taken into account both locally and nationally.