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Contact us Labour activists had 'vote-rigging factory' to hijack postal votes By Nick Britten (Filed: 05/04/2005) Beneath the veneer of an apparently democratic local election campaign th e battle to control areas of Birmingham involved allegations of death th reats, intimidation and bribery. In scenes more reminiscent of a gangster movie, party members used nefari ous tactics to ensure a clean sweep of the six available seats in Aston and Bordesley Green, delivering a large and surprising swing towards Lab our. Mohammed Islam, Muhammed Afzal and Mohammed Kazi The accused Aston candidates: Mohammed Islam, Muhammed Afzal and Mohammed Kazi At the height of the skulduggery was a "vote-rigging factory" set up by L abour activists in Aston and run from a disused warehouse. There, the th ree candidates - Mohammed Islam, Muhammed Afzal and Mohammed Kazi, who m aintained their innocence and described yesterday's judgment as a "dark day for democracy" - and their supporters altered bags stuffed with ball ots to ensure that they were elected. A midnight raid by police on the eve of the election found them sitting a t a table with 275 unsealed postal votes scattered on a table in front o f them. The most common was to get hold of a copy of the electoral register, apply for a postal ball ot in someone else's name and have it sent to a "safe" address where it could be picked up. This could then be submitted with a forged signature and false witness co nfirmation, and the ballot could be accepted. Another method was to get activists to go door to door collecting papers, signed or unsigned, whic h could then be doctored. Shafaq Ahmed, Shah Jahan and Ayaz Khan The accused Bordesley Green councillors: Shafaq Ahmed, Shah Jahan and Aya z Khan Typical of the victims were pensioners Arthur and Joan White, in Bordesle y Green, who were visted one night by a young man claiming to be from th e council collecting ballot papers. Mrs White, 77, said: "He told me to fill it in as he was standing there a nd asked me to put a cross in all three boxes for the main parties, whic h I did. I didn't think it was right but I knew it was a new system and he said he was from the council and so I presumed he knew what he was ta lking about." Mr White, 80, later discovered that the signature on his ballot was forge d by the time it was entered into the election. During investigations by The Telegraph, other allegations were made, incl uding an attempt by Labour activists to bribe postmen to hand over blank ballots without going through the "middle men" of the voters. One illiterate man is said to have had his name used on more than 50 ball ot papers. Activists stood over voters while they filled in their form, pressuring them to vote Labour. The hearing was told that the Labour candidates opened sealed papers befo re changing the vote and re-sealing them, knowing that checks by the cou ncil were useless to stop them. There was uproar on the day of the vote when three "unexplained", unseale d ballot boxes appeared at the count and were included, along with a pla stic bag stuffed with votes for Labour. It became apparent that the postal voting system was hopelessly susceptib le to malpractice. The application form required the voter's name, addre ss and signature. The applicant could have had the fo rm sent to any address, filled it in and sent it back with a false witne ss name, an illegible squiggle for a signature and it would have been ac cepted. Even if the paper had clearly been altered, with crosses for one party de leted or just scribbled over with a vote case for another party, it had to be included in the count. In Bordesley Green, of the 7,000 postal votes cast, up to 2,000 were eith er stolen, altered with correction fluid, diverted or falsified in Labou r's favour. The party succeeded in ousting the People's Justice Party's two councillors by 441 votes. Similarly in Aston, where at least 1,000 v otes were fraudulent, the Liberal Democrats lost by 514 votes. The defeated parties brought a petition against the winning councillors u nder the Representation of the People Act 1983 and the hearing took plac e at the Birmingham and Midlands Institute. The Bordesley Green councillors, Shafaq Ahmed, Shah Jahan and Ayaz Khan, were not present. They walked out of the hearing on the first day after the Labour Party withdrew its legal support and the judge declined them more time to prepare their case. Ayoub Khan, 31, a Lib Dem councillor who lost his seat at the election, s aid: "It was a very tough door to door campaign, and it really was as ba d as it sounds. I knocked on doors where the householder would say he'd been offered 10 for his vote. In Aston, one of the most deprived areas in the country, you can see how people are easily tempted. "It may seem like extreme lengths to go to just to get a council seat, bu t that seat opens up a doorway to a lot of power locally and attracts hu ge amounts of funding from Britain and Europe." He added that the fraud was made easier because community elders held gre at sway over their extended families. Mr Khan, who was one of the petitioners, said he had received "numerous d eath threats" since the hearing began, with telephone messages "threaten ing to blow my kneecaps off". The danger now is that the general election becomes a false ballot in key constituencies where candidates are persuaded to use underhand tactics. The Electoral Commission has issued a code of conduct signed by all par ties, and police have vowed to keep a much keener eye on proceedings. But Chris Game, senior lecturer at Birmingham University's Institute of L ocal Government Studies, said the hearing was "like a guide to postal vo te manipulation". He added: "The Birmingham cases show how the vote can be undermined very, very easily by postal vote fraud".
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