THE Government has performed a complete climbdown on the dangers of postal voting fraud by rushing through urgent reforms in time for next year’s local elections.

Sweeping new security measures to prevent scandals will be announced in the Queen’s Speech. The electoral roll will be made more reliable by requiring everybody to provide their signature and a code number, such as their date of birth, before they can vote.

Political parties would be prevented from collecting postal vote applications, as the Conservatives and Labour did in marginal constituencies in the general election. A new offence of fraudulently applying for a postal vote would carry a maximum penalty of two years imprisonment, an unlimited fine and a ban on standing for public office or voting.

The changes reflect an astonishing U-turn. As the election campaign started, Tony Blair claimed that postal voting was no more prone to fraud than other systems. Now ministers believe that proposals for a Bill, almost entirely devoted to postal voting reform, need to be in place by Tuesday.

The movement for change began with an investigation by The Times last June which found widespread claims of cheating and intimidation in postal voting in local and European elections.

The independent Electoral Reform Society welcomed the changes. “Wonderful, wonderful, that’s just exactly as it should be,” Ken Ritchie, its chief executive, said. “I am sure that the way The Times highlighted this was very important.”

The reforms tackle postal voting fraud and also small-scale identity fraud in polling booths.

Richard Mawrey, QC, an election commissioner, castigated politicians last month when he found six Birmingham Labour councillors guilty of postal-vote rigging. One was later cleared on appeal.

The deputy High Court judge made a devastating critique of weaknesses in the system. In a withering passage of his 192-page judgment, he said that the Government had accused critics of scare- mongering. The Government’s attitude “indicates a state not simply of complacency but of denial,” he said. Ministers and civil servants spent 24 hours wondering how to respond to an unexpectedly damning report. It was too late to change anything: the Prime Minister was calling a general election the following day.

Nick Raynsford, the Local Governmment Minister at the time, went to Parliament and accused the judge of making inferences without any evidence.

Mr Raynsford stood down in the post-election reshuffle and the electoral reform portfolio has been given to Harriet Harman, Minister of State in the Department for Constitutional Affairs. At a press conference, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, the Lord Chancellor, repeatedly praised Mr Mawrey’s report, saying that it had raised problems that the Government would now tackle.

The biggest concession is to require everybody to sign before they can get on to the electoral roll. Elections officers will then have a record of signatures to compare with documents accompanying postal votes. Voters will also have to supply a code which could be their date of birth or national insurance number. These security methods could also be introduced in polling stations.

This falls short of the demand for individual registration. Ministers fear that if everybody in a household had to complete a separate form, some people would be disenfranchised. The one area that is ignored is intimidation. The Electoral Commission has asked the Government to introduce a law of undue influence over postal voting but this has been excluded.

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