There’s been a lot of debate over the last few months about the merits, or otherwise, of holding General Election counts on the Friday instead of counting through the night on polling day.
But no-one has seriously suggested it might be an opportunity for politicians of any party to break into ballot boxes and fix the election. After all, such a claim would be the cheapest of smears, based on zero evidence.
Step forward Labour Minister and MP for Newcastle East and Wallsend, Nick Brown.
Criticising Newcastle’s plans for a Friday count, Brown said
The reason the votes are counted immediately after the polls close is to stop people cheating.
Leaving blank ballot papers and lists of those who haven’t voted and the ballot boxes all together in the same place overnight is not a reassuring prospect. The scope for fraud is obvious.
I wouldn’t trust Newcastle Liberal Democrats to be left alone with the blank ballot papers and ballot boxes overnight.
Unsurprisingly, Newcastle Lib Dems and Council Officers are furious. Lib Dem Cllr Gary Keating said
The acting returning officer from Newcastle, who is the chief executive of the city council, works with the staff in the democratic services department.
If Mr Brown is accusing the Liberal Democrats of abusing the election process he would seem to be implying that the European elections of 2004 and 2009 as well as the local government elections on 2004, 2007 and 2008 have been fiddled.
Such a claim is an insult to everyone involved in this process including the majority of the Labour councillors of the constitutional committee who voted for the general election count to take place on Friday.
This comes just a day after Nick Brown’s Lib Dem opponent Greg Stone stood down. Stone’s resignation as PPC followed insulting comments he’d made about other politicians.
Brown’s verdict on how a party should react when one politician insulted others?
“Had something like [Greg Stone’s blog comments] happened in the Labour Party or indeed the Conservative Party, the perpetrator would be thrown out straight away.
Now Brown has accused his opponents of being likely to commit electoral fraud, it might be fair to ask what action the Labour Party will be taking.
Hat tip to Jonathan Wallace for the story.
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12 Comments
He does have a point though doesn’t he.
However, as he’s a Labour Minister; I would have thought that he would be advocating the “Labour Postal Votes Scam” which his party perfected in Glenrothes – the postal vote applications going from under 2000 to over 7,000 for the by-election.
And then “surprise, surprise”; when the SNP ask to see the votes – they have somehow mysteriously all vanished, thus making it difficult to prove anything.
I would have thought Nick Brown would be rubbing his hands together at yet another opportunity to “rig the ballot” no matter where it is. After all, Labour are going to have to rely on foul means, not fair, to win the GE.
It says a lot more about Nick Brown’s instincts than about the Lib Dems that his first thought about a Friday count is that it would mean fraud.
Although it looks like there are going to be a lot more counts on Friday this time, delayed counts are not a new thing.
Many councils, run by all parties and none, have held Friday General Election counts, a larger number Friday local election counts and Sunday counts have been routine for European Elections.
It is also the case that elections are run by each council’s professional officers, not councillors. In my experience of elections run by many different councils the officers tend to take their responsibilities pretty seriously.
It looks to me like Nick Brown is a worried man, but probably not for the reasons he claims!
In Northern Ireland, which always has next day counts for Local and General Elections, the sealed ballot boxes are collected at the close of Poll by the Police, kept in a local Police Station and delivered by the Police to the count centre the next morning.
Liberal Neil is right. No councillor will get to handle a single ballot-box. The tin cans will be in the capable hands of Electoral Registration and Dmeocratic Services staff (whose political views will vary, and some of whom will have worked for the previous Labour administration), and the Police (almost all of whom vote Conservative). This is about the lamest smear of the pre-campaign thus far.
BTW, is this the same Nick Brown who was once the Parliamentary lackey (sorry, spokesman) for the National Farmers Union and gave us martial law in the countryside?
There’s also the assumption that a next-day count would require the ballot boxes, blank ballots and list of those who haven’t voted to be stored in the same place overnight, which is clearly lunacy. I would expect those things to be stored seperately, as well as kept under guard (by the same people we already trust to transport ballot boxes, plus independent observers who might wish to attend).
Security is a legitimate issue. As well as police guard I would allow each candidate the option of sending a representative to witness that the ballots are not interfered with overnight.
Nick Brown’s partisan smear is illegitamte and I expect many more Liberal Democrat activists will now be motivated to do some canvassing in Newcastle over the next few months.
Nick Brown is a fat bully, a parliamentary expenses-fiend, and a man who was an incompetent disaster as minister for agriculture.
jim – I object to the “fattist” tone at the start of your post – however the rest is absolutely true…
Nick Brown says “The reason the votes are counted immediately after the polls close is to stop people cheating”. Well, yes, that is also the reason voting is done by paper into a ballot box which is sealed at the end of count. Perhaps Mr Brown has forgotten it was Labour who was keen on pushing postal voting (what happens to all those ballot papers arriving in dribs and drabs, or for that matter when they’re sitting in the sorting office?) and on-line voting (who knows what goes on in the code for that?). The corollary to Mr Brown’s views given here is that he should say “Sorry, New Labour got it wrong, I now realise that”. I wouldn’t trust a hypocrite who can’t admit when he has fouled up, and that’s what Nick Brown has shown himself to be here, unless of course he really did mean to use the “throw enough mud and it will stick technique”, in which case he’s worse.
I withdraw “fat” and subsitute “weak”
“I wouldn’t trust Newcastle Liberal Democrats to be left alone with the blank ballot papers and ballot boxes overnight.”
They should sue
“I wouldn’t trust Newcastle Liberal Democrats to be left alone with the blank ballot papers and ballot boxes overnight.”
They should sue
Then the lawyers win.
I’ve been in cases – in particular a really nasty Labour election leaflet which threw some quite horrendous personal abuse at me, of the level of the suggestions here but more direct – where if I had infinite supplies of money, I would have sued. I don’t and so I didn’t.
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