22/01/2008 Monitoring
, 22.01.2008 – The voting system in the is open to fraud, and while it delivers democratic elections, this is despite vulnerabilities in the system which should urgently be addressed, according to a committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE).
In an opinion made public today, PACE’s Monitoring Committee said 2006 changes to the postal voting system had enhanced security, but shortcomings remained. In particular, registering voters without personal identifiers – such as date of birth or national insurance number – made it “childishly simple” to register bogus voters, the parliamentarians said. Postal voting then provided the anonymity to carry out fraud without detection.
The opinion’s authors, former German Justice Minister Herta Däubler-Gmelin (SOC) and Polish Senator Urszula Gacek (EPP/CD), urged the introduction across the of the electoral system used in since 2002, and strongly recommended that the checking of personal identifiers on all returned postal ballots be made mandatory before the next elections. They also recommended that party activists should no longer be allowed to handle postal ballots.
The should not face a full PACE monitoring procedure at this stage, the committee concluded – but special attention should be paid to these outstanding vulnerabilities during periodic monitoring reports on the . If they are not addressed, and start to have an impact on the overall democratic nature of British elections, a full monitoring procedure should again be considered.
Full text of the opinion (PDF)
Press release announcing the investigation
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