Smash hit

Electoral officials continued yesterday to report lost and spoilt postal ballots which could affect the outcome of today’s European and local council elections. Early checks at sorting centres in the North East suggested that about 5 per cent, or 40,000 votes, could be invalid in one region. Many of the ballot forms were invalid because they did not include a witness signature.

The Labour “postal vote handbook” obtained by The Times suggests that campaigners should stand with red rosettes outside church halls and traditional sites for polling stations with ballot boxes to court voters who might have missed the post.

“You could even have a ballot box for people to put their votes in which you can then deliver to the returning officer before close of poll,” the booklet says. “If your volunteers are wearing a red rosette it is unlikely that supporters of other parties will give you their votes.”

The document also gives a detailed timetable of when and where party campaigners should be every day during the election period. “On each day you should concentrate your volunteers in one or two places within your target wards so that they can visit Labour voters, encourage them to vote, and if asked to, collect their completed ballot papers to forward to the returning officers.”

The Labour Party initially claimed last night that the document was a draft report which had never been circulated and was updated in January or February to remove mention of ballot boxes.

A spokesman later admitted that the “initial” report had been updated in April. He conceded that the advice had probably gone out to regional offices and party campaigners who “may still be using the out of date guidance”.

But the spokesman insisted there was “nothing inappropriate or illegal or wrong” about using false ballot boxes. “This is about making sure that people with a postal vote have it counted. This is not about handling ballot papers. We have always taken our responsibility in this area very seriously.”

Opposition parties called for ministers to disown the “shabby practice”. “Until now, the Government’s all-postal vote experiment has been an avoidable shambles. But this development is altogether more sinister,” Liam Fox, the Tory party chairman, said.

Earlier Ann Cryer, Labour MP for Keighley, called on Asian voters who had been forced into handing over their ballot papers to report the bullies to police or returning officers, without fear of intimidation. Mrs Cryer said there might have to be a rerun of the election or removal of some winning candidates because of irregularities in the all-postal ballot. She had heard of “supporters of certain candidates simply going to houses and demanding their ballot papers and, where the ballot paper has been filled in, it has been Tipp-Exed out.

“There have been men going round with plastic carrier bags full of ballot papers.”

Police have begun investigating fraud allegations in a third European Parliament constituency, the East Midlands. Allegations of fraud in Derby have been referred to the returning officer. There has been at least one claim that postal votes have been cast by people other than the electors. One complaint is believed to allege that a vote had been cast despite the voter being in India.

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