Police investigate ‘postal vote theft on massive scale’

SPECIAL BRANCH detectives are investigating claims that postal vote fraud is taking place on a “massive scale” in East London, where hundreds of votes have allegedly been stolen from residential tower blocks.

The claims have been brought by George Galloway’s Respect party and other political parties fighting council seats in Tower Hamlets, where postal vote applications have nearly doubled since last year. The Labour-led council has sent out more than 18,700 postal ballot papers, but insiders claim that 6,000 of the applications were returned on April 18, the closing date to apply by post. In some wards this represented a 113 per cent increase in postal votes.

A spokesman for the council confirmed that it had first been alerted to the problem before Easter when it alerted police after it was noticed that tens of votes were being directed to one address.

Scotland Yard is also investigating vote-rigging allegations in seven other London boroughs, and a separate police inquiry is under way in Birmingham. A 50-year-old woman arrested on Wednesday was identified yesterday as the wife of Mohammed Khan, a Liberal Democrat candidate.

A Tory candidate standing for election to Oxford City Council is also the subject of a police inquiry. Charles Steel, an Oxford University student, was accused of forging the signatures of nominees, which are required to allow him to stand. Police were alerted by the council after receiving complaints from two supposed nominees who said that they had not signed his paper.

The allegations being investigated in London involve a ten-storey tower block in the Limehouse ward of Tower Hamlets.

Suspicions were alerted when 90 of the 93 registered voters applied for a postal vote. Subsequently several residents insisted that they had not asked for one, according to a newspaper report.

It is also claimed that none of the residents has received a ballot paper even though postal vote ballot papers were sent out last week. The Electoral Commission said later that there was often a problem with tower blocks as papers were usually delivered to a ground-floor lobby, where they could be intercepted. In other cases postal votes are diverted to a third-party address.

Mr Galloway held a press conference yesterday to raise the latest allegations of election fraud, which he claimed was an attempt to stop his party getting more votes.

Last year Mr Galloway raised allegations of electoral fraud when he inflicted a surprise defeat on Oona King, who was Labour MP in Bethnal Green & Bow. “This may be one of the most serious examples of political corruption in modern British history,” Mr Galloway said yesterday.

Tower Hamlets council, where Labour holds a seven-strong majority, confirmed that almost every party fighting in the elections had registered complaints against other parties.

But a spokeswoman emphasised that the police could investigate a complaint only if it was bought by the individual whose vote had been tampered with, not by a third party.

The council has urged voters to return all postal ballots without giving them to a third party.

Copyright 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd.