Four Conservative party supporters from Bradford tried to rig the voting system in the run-up to a General Election in a plot to “harvest” postal votes, a court heard today.

Mohammed Sultan, Mohammed Rafiq, Reis Khan and Jamshed Khan sent off for postal voting applications under false names or had legitimate applications re-directed to them, Leeds Crown Court heard.

Their aim was to get “their man” Haroon Rashid, 39, elected to the Bradford West seat in the 2005 General Election, said prosecutor Mark Ainsworth.

But the conspiracy failed because they did not send off all the applications to Bradford Council’s electoral registration officer, following concerns over a police investigation, said Mr Ainsworth.

Mr Rashid was beaten by 3,026 votes in the battle for the Bradford West constituency.

“The fact that the electoral fraud was not successful does not matter,” said Mr Ainsworth.

“The defendants set to manipulate the electoral system to make sure that their candidate would have enough votes to be elected.”

He said each of the defendants played their part in the conspiracy, which saw applications made in the names of people who did not live at certain addresses or who “had no idea” that postal voting applications were being made on their behalf.

The “fraudulent” postal vote applications, which would have been considered by the electoral registration officer, would result in “fraudulent” votes, the prosecution said.

Mr Ainsworth said: “They could access the ballot papers that they could fill in themselves and vote for whoever they wanted elected in the General Election.”

He said evidence had been gathered by forensic investigators which implicated the men, as part of West Yorkshire Police’s Operation Talmine into vote rigging.

The jury was shown different examples of postal voting applications which the prosecution claims were filled in with false details. Some were written in the defendants’ handwriting while others had their fingerprints on them, said Mr Ainsworth.

He said: “The four defendants were involved in an agreement to rig the voting system… to enable false votes to be cast in the general election. It was only the inherent threat of a police investigation that prevented these conspirators, we say, from harvesting all the false votes.”

Sultan, 51, of Toller Lane, Bradford; Rafiq, 69, of Cecil Avenue, Great Horton; Reis Khan, 39, of Whetley Hill, Bradford, and Jamshed Khan, 55, of Russell Street, Bradford, all deny conspiracy to defraud. Another man, Alyas Khan, 51, of Hilton Road, has already pleaded guilty to the charges.