Saturday 5 December 2015

Farage clouds real concerns over postal voting.

It is rather typical of Nigel Farage that he managed to revert to racism  after lashing out at constituencies where people "don't speak English" for ruining the electoral system, in the wake of Ukip suffering poor results in the Oldham West by-election.

His Party however have a History of claiming votes were rigged .. Ukip voters have vented  their frustration at Nigel Farage's loss in South Thanet  in May's General Election by claiming to vote was rigged to keep him out of parliament.

Angry Ukippers are used  #ThanetRigged to claim the party taking the council but losing in the general election is proof of some shady goings-on.
Some party faithful are claimed local conspiracy because the count took hours longer than usual, and coupled with Ukip's shock council poll victory on the same day at Thanet, obviously suggests someone is having them on.
Of course in Thanet  Farage's party cannot revert to crude racist point scoring but  stil cannot accept they lost and lok to a conspiracy


Following a convincing Labour win in the Greater Manchester constituency, the Ukip leader insisted that an “impeccable” source had evidence that the postal vote for the by-election was “bent”.
He tweeted:

As a veteran of over thirty by-elections I have never seen such a perverse result. Serious questions need to be asked.

Evidence from an impeccable source that today's postal voting was bent.

Farage repeated the complaints on BBC Radio 4, adding that “ethnic changes” in the country were also contributing to a situation where “the electoral process is now dead”.
Speaking on the Today programme, he said that Ukip would be making a formal complaint.
He said:
 “I’ve been in 30 by-elections and no result has shocked me quite as much as this one.“Some very odd things happened yesterday.“There was a 5% increase in the number of postal votes yesterday.”
He claimed that there were “bundles of postal votes being delivered on behalf of other people”, and compared the process to what happened in Birmingham and Tower Hamlets votes.
Farage added that he believed that “ethnic changes” were also having an effect on results, claiming that people who “can’t speak English” and “haven't even heard of Jeremy Corbyn” were still voting for Labour.

The reality in Oldham however was that Labour were better organised than al the other Party's in Thanet ,had more troops on the ground and knew how to organise  the postal votes in the way they used to collect people in cars  and deliver them to the voting station.
This does not mean that our postal voting system should not bear examined.

It used to be an old joke in Northern Ireland as Parties supporters were urged to
"Vote early and vote often"
Reflecting the use of impersonation  at the polling Station where it is claimed people who were still on the electoral register who had died or were unable to get to the polling station voted.

Labours win on Thursday was probably as I said due to their organisation  but it is a concern that the system  of postal votes cannot guarantee that the person filing in the ballot paper  was not the one who applied for the vote.

I doubt that this could make a huge difference in a parliamentary election and Labour's margin of victory was so large it would have led to a level of corruption that would be easily exposed.

We must not let Farage use of crude racial stereotyping to divert us from questioning whether the current postal voting system is fit for purpose in a democratically run election.







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