It remains to be seen whether the plan for random checks on postal votes in a bid to curb fraud in June's all-postal council elections will deter any would-be fraudsters. It appears to be a rather hit-and-miss scheme involving the signatures of an unspecified number of postal voters being compared to those on forms returned by people applying to be on the register and photocopies of signatures accompanying ballot papers being sent to people asking for verification.
All this will happen, of course, after the voting has taken place and the result has been declared. It is not clear what will happen then if any fraud is discovered which might cast doubt on that result - although as the Council's deputy returning officer Gerry Danby rightly points out, electoral fraud is a crime which may be punishable with imprisonment.
These random signature checks have been requested by the Electoral Commission, which has the task of monitoring the postal-voting pilot scheme Bradford has had forced upon it by the Government, presumably to identify any problems before it is imposed on the country as a whole. It is difficult to avoid the impression that Bradford is being made part of an ill-thought-through experiment in which local democracy could be damaged.
Until there is individual registration of the sort suggested yesterday by a committee of MPs rather than a single signature from the head of the household on the registration form it is hard to know how this check of signatures can be effective. This system which has been foisted on us is half-baked as well as dangerous.
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