Two internal reports by the returning officer into the Lib Dems’ selection of their prospective Parliamentary candidate for Leyton and Wanstead have been leaked to the local press, which reports:
RULES to prevent postal vote fraud were broken during the election for the Liberal Democrats’ prospective Parliamentary candidate for Leyton and Wanstead, the returning officer (RO) has found.
Former Mayor of Waltham Forest, Cllr Farooq Qureshi, was selected ahead of nearest rival Nasser Butt to stand against sitting Labour MP Harry Cohen at the next general election.
The full story is here.
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8 Comments
The reports shouldn’t have been leaked – and presumably there is a fairly small list of potential leakers and even fewer with a motive.
However you have to ask the question as to whether an election in which 15% of the votes were excluded as suspicious shouldn’t be regarded as unacceptable and rerun.
The ROs statement as to his powers seems way off beam as well:
Rule 33.3 Investigation of the complaint and making a ruling
The Returning Officer shall investigate the complaint promptly and make a ruling
concerning the complaint. S/he shall take such action as they feel is appropriate in the light
of the nature, seriousness and effect of any breach of the rules which may have taken
place.
Seems a pretty wide power to me!
I have two comments. (1) How on earth has all this stuff got into the local press?
(2) Why on earth is this discussion taking place in this public forum instead of taking place in the part that is restricted to party members? (Or even in the altogether better environment of cix?)
I agree with Tony Greaves. Combined with the discussion on this site on the London Assembly list result, I do rather fear that our opponents are building a very helpful (to them!) file on us!!!
And dont forget Folkestone …
Thank you, anonymous, for proving my point.
I think thought that once this was leaked to the press any additional damage by it being posted on this site is marginal
The story says more about one of the losing candidates than it does of the winning one. A storm in a teacup.
The most important thing is – what’s going on in Leyton Ward – how are the local party using Grell and the fact that due to the Labour Party there are only two active cllrs.