A SUDDEN rush for proxy voting forms in one of the poorest parts of Burnley — suggesting a mass exodus by residents on lengthy foreign holidays — alerted officials to a serious electoral fraud, a court was told yesterday.

Applications on behalf of more than 150 residents for absentee voting forms during a local election, which was being conducted entirely by post, led to a police investigation into possible vote-rigging.

Two of the town’s Liberal Democrat councillors, Mozaquir Ali and Manzoor Hussain, went on trial yesterday accused of electoral fraud arising during the poll. They deny conspiring to defraud the borough’s returning officer by dishonestly causing and permitting applications for proxy votes.

Forms submitted by 50 electors in a square mile largely populated by elderly people and poor immigrants claimed that they would all be out of the country and needed a proxy to cast their votes, a jury was told.

The local elections of June 2004 were conducted entirely by post, enabling people to vote at home over a period of days. “Whilst the authorities didn’t expect many applications to vote by proxy, Mr Ali did,” David Turner, QC, for the prosecution, said.

Shortly before the election, a council official asked Mr Ali if he was going to hand in any such applications. He allegedly said that he thought he would submit between 100 and 200 forms. “He was quite close to his prediction,” Mr Turner said.

The Daneshouse with Stoneyholme ward, lying to the north of the centre of the Lancashire town, has a population of just over 6,000.

On 50 forms, voters provided details of foreign holidays. “The information is false,” Mr Turner said. “The voters were not abroad. Their vote was being taken from them to be used as these defendants wanted.”

The councillor eventually provided 167 out of the entire 182 proxy applications for the ward. Police were called in on May 17 and an investigation was launched. Anxious to avoid depriving anyone of their right to vote, the returning officer — Burnley council’s chief executive, Gillian Taylor — had to accept the proxy votes as genuine. Mr Ali won with a majority of 369 votes over Labour.

Detectives discovered the proxy voters had been in the country after all. Interviewed by police, Mr Ali admitted completing forms and said most would have his handwriting on them. He said that he had been filling in information about the voters, which had been relayed to him by party workers.

“He denied involvement in any deception,” Mr Turner said. “That is a blatant lie. He knew perfectly well it was at the instigation of himself and the co-accused that he brought about this election fraud.” The trial continues.

dkennedy@thetimes.co.uk

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