BBC NEWS | England | West Midlands | Judge upholds vote-rigging claims

BBC NEWS | England | West Midlands | Judge upholds vote-rigging claims

A judge investigating vote-rigging in Birmingham's local elections has ruled there was "widespread fraud", and has ordered new elections.

Election Commissioner Richard Mawrey QC upheld allegations of postal fraud relating to six seats won by Labour in the ballot of June 10 last year.

"The system is wide open to fraud and any would-be political fraudster knows that," Mr Mawrey said.

The results have been declared void and the polls in the wards must be rerun.

...

The deputy high court judge said the system was "hopelessly insecure" and expressed regret that recent warnings about the failings had been dismissed by the government as "scaremongering".

He criticised the government's insistence that the current postal voting system was working, adding: "Anybody who has sat through the case I have just tried and listened to evidence of electoral fraud that would disgrace a banana republic would find this statement surprising."

This Judge, with all due respect, obviously doesn't know the New Labour Way Of Handling Bad News (tm)...

Deny it, then collectively stick fingers in ears shouting "La La La La La La..." until the problem goes away.