Friday, May 04, 2007

It is good to know that the elections were carried out properly this time

Here are some of the stories from the last 24 hrs


Three arrested over poll offence
Three people have been arrested near a polling station on suspicion of electoral offences.
Two 26-year-old men and one 22-year-old man were due to be questioned by police after being stopped in Searjeant Street, Peterborough at 2125 BST.
The men, from Peterborough, were arrested on suspicions of handling stolen property (thought to be polling cards) and an electoral offence.
A third of the seats at Peterborough council are up for election.
The council is presently under Conservative control.....

Glitches force council recounts
Five English councils trialling new ways of electronic voting have been forced to hold recounts after a series of glitches.
Warwick, Stratford and Breckland district councils suffered delays as scanning machines performed poorly.
Computer crashes hit systems in South Buckinghamshire and Swindon.
All five councils are conducting recounts by hand. The government said no votes would be lost, with delays the only problem suffered.
'Not lost'
The authorities were among a dozen testing advance voting, electronic voting by internet or telephone, e-counting and signing for ballot papers.

Review under way on voting chaos
The Electoral Commission said it had begun "with immediate effect" an investigation into the Holyrood election voting chaos.
The polls have been hit by major problems with seven counts suspended and up to 100,000 ballot papers spoilt.
The Scotland Office said "serious technical failures" had delayed the announcement of some results.

Two Lib Dems arrested over fraud
A Liberal Democrat Birmingham city councillor and a candidate for election to the council have been arrested on suspicion of electoral fraud.
Zaker Choudhry, who represents the Bordesley Green ward, and Mohammed Saeed, nominated in the same ward, have both been suspended from the party.
West Midlands Police said two men, aged 42 and 52, were arrested on Tuesday at two addresses in Small Heath.
They have been released on police bail pending further inquiries.

Voting concerns as papers delayed
Postal voters at home and abroad fear they may have lost the chance to vote in the Scottish elections because of a delay in delivering ballot papers.
Production and distribution problems have been blamed, with forms failing to arrive at homes ahead of Thursday.

Man held over vote fraud claims
Police investigating allegations of election fraud in Bradford have arrested a 38-year-old man.
West Yorkshire detectives launched an inquiry last week over allegations made against Conservative councillor Jamshed Khan, 51.
Concerns were raised over claims in a newspaper that 13 people had applied for a postal vote at his Bradford home.

Activists ‘meddling with postal votes for other parties’
Ministers were urged to bring in new laws to ban political parties from handling postal votes amid growing concerns about electoral fraud.
As polling booths closed across Britain, with near-record turnouts in Scotland, council chief executives issued a statement claiming that party workers across Britain were interfering with postal votes

Police called in as Labour fail to take control of Bradford
Police are investigating eight complaints about electoral irregularities in Bradford this year and one Labour councillor had to be given a police escort to his car yesterday after he accused an opponent of running a "dirty" campaign.


Makes me proud to be a Brit

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fairly sure that the story about Birmingham Council is from the 2005 General Election - either that or they enjoyed yesterday's election so much that they're going to have another one tomorrow.

Gawain Towler said...

My bad, consider corrected.

That makes up for missing out the Leeds story then

Anonymous said...

Why don't they ever learn that the only safe way to hold an election is for people to mark paper with something indelible, and for other people to physically count the papers?

Gawain Towler said...

You think they are interested in accurate results?
Pishaw, you romantic fool

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