The great postal vote scandal of 2004 rumbles on. Today the elections watchdog, the Electoral Commission, published its analysis of what went wrong in the June elections. Its observations ought to make Tony Blair blush beetroot beneath his Tuscan tan. Eager to boost turnout in its Northern heartlands, Labour insisted on extending a “pilot” trial of all-postal voting to no fewer than four regions, the North East, East Midlands, Yorkshire and the North West — an area inhabited by 14 million voters.
John Prescott, at whose insistence this experiment was recklessly expanded to cover such a high number of voters, was repeatedly told that the decision was unwise: by the House of Lords, by MPs, by delegations of worried minority leaders. He would listen to none of them. He failed to foresee, or to forestall, huge administrative incompetence and political malpractice.
Ballot papers arrived late, in some cases not at all. Furthermore, the forms themselves were so complex that many — the elderly, the infirm, the gullible — had trouble filling them in. This in turn led to allegations of coercion, as unscrupulous candidates (or their representatives) sought to influence votes under the guise of “helping out”. Further accusations of outright fraud and voter intimidation followed.
What might charitably have been interpreted as a move to counter voter apathy was devalued by its clear partisan agenda and its hasty implementation. More people than otherwise may have voted, but the reputation of British democracy suffered — hardly a satisfactory political result.
Developing alternative voting methods is not, in itself, a bad idea. Indeed, alternatives must be pursued with vigour, but with rigour too. If people find the polling booth off-putting — or just plain inconvenient — perhaps one solution is to bring the ballot out of the box and on to the kitchen table by offering a postal option. But why insist on all-postal votes? The aim of the June pilot should have been to expand voter options, not close them down — and in doing so expose the electorate to a range of abuses.
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It is these abuses that the report addresses. Predictably, practical changes to postal voting aimed at dealing with alleged cases of intimidation and fraud have been suggested. These range from improved planning to prevent more missing forms, to recommending that current household registration is replaced by individual registration.
But the report goes further, essentially ruling out all-postal voting as a satisfactory model, advocating instead a choice of methods, to include the polling booth. It also insists that, although it is keen to support “remote voting”, it will not do so at the expense of secrecy and security, and that the legislative framework underpinning postal voting must therefore be urgently reformed.
As well as calling for the fraudulent completion of postal vote applications to be made an offence, the commission intends to provide, by March next year, a “foundation model” for voting which will, presumably, provide some more concrete solutions to the problems identified. In the meantime, it emphasises that there should be a moratorium on any further piloting. It is all the more peculiar, then, that the Commission goes on to say that, as far as the forthcoming North East referendum on an elected regional assembly is concerned, that should proceed as an all-postal ballot. In other words: never again — but just this once. It’s a curious position to take, and one which the Government should consider carefully. The honourable thing to do would be to offer voters the choice between the ballot box and the post box. But so far, honour has had a lamentably small part to play in this sorry drama.