THE House of Lords yesterday defied the Commons by insisting that, to combat election fraud, everybody should sign their name and give their date of birth before they are given a vote. For the second time in a fortnight, ministers failed to persuade peers to drop demands for tough new measures designed to defeat vote rigging.
The Government has agreed to force everyone seeking a postal vote to provide their signature and date of birth. Peers want the reform extended to voting in person.
At present, a head of household signs the application form for everyone at a particular address. No identity checks are made in polling booths.
Leading peers cited an investigation by The Times which disclosed that imposters had stolen voters’ identities in the polling booths during elections in Coventry on May 4.
The Electoral Administration Bill, seen as the last chance to reform the discredited voting system before the next general election, will now be debated again by MPs.
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An amendment moved by Baroness Hanham, the Conservative local government spokesman, was accepted by 156 votes to 147. She said: “It is a sad truth that there are those who do not act scrupulously with regards to voting, who do not regard it as a precious right that should be carried out with integrity but are anxious for one reason or another to skew election results.”
Quoting The Times, she said: “People who were known to be in Pakistan at the time of the election ‘appeared’ in the polling station on polling day and voted there, not by postal vote but in person.
“Since there are no checks undertaken in the polling station, there would be no means for an officer to know those people were not there in person.”
Ministers fear that many could be disenfranchised if individuals fail to register their right to vote. Baroness Hanham said: “I do not accept that to have a register which is more accurate, even if it reduced, in the short term, the number of people on it, would be a world-shattering disaster.”
Lord Rennard, the Liberal Democrat chief executive, said that commentators such as Peter Riddell had urged peers to stick to their guns.“It would be better to put things right before a general election than have, at the time of that general election, many allegations of fraud contending the results or the outcome and bringing politics generally into a lower level of regard,” he said.
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Baroness Ashton of Upholland, the Constitutional Affairs Minister, said peers should wait to see how the reforms to postal voting worked before going further.
Gordon Prentice, the Labour MP for Pendle, rebelled against the Government in last week’s vote, saying he now wanted international observers to police British elections.
dkennedy@thetimes.co.uk
TACKLING THE VOTE-RIGGERS