Osborne blasts voting reform body for funding campaign

With less than a month until the May 5 poll, he attacked the Yes camp’s funding from the Electoral Reform Society (ERS).

Mr Osborne said there were “very serious questions to be answered” because the body’s commercial arm stands to benefit financially from a positive result.

Solicitors acting for Electoral Reform Services Ltd (ERSL), the business arm of the ERS, dismissed the suggestion and claims it was using taxpayers’ cash to fund the pro-reform group as “wholly untrue”.

Questions about the heavy involvement of the Society in the Yes camp were revived when their opponents produced research showing ERSL earned £15m from public sector contracts over the past three years.

The firm, which supplies ballot and election services including electronic counting machines, has contracts with most local authorities in the UK and also works with the NHS and government.

Part of its post-tax profit is passed to the Society, which has provided more than £1m to the pro-AV referendum campaign.

Mr Osborne said the arrangement “really stinks”, adding: “The Electoral Reform Society – which is running some of the referendum ballots – stands to benefit if AV comes in because it could be one of the people who provide these electronic voting machines.

“That is exactly the sort of dodgy, behind-the-scenes shenanigans that people don’t like about politics and politicians.”

But the pro-AV camp described it as “desperate rubbish” and claimed its rivals are covering up its funding from Tory donors.

“We have declared every penny we have received from the moment we were formed – they haven’t,” said a spokesman. “What do they have to hide?”

The chairwoman of the Electoral Commission, Jenny Watson, who is chief counting officer for the referendum, said: “We have put in place detailed and comprehensive arrangements for monitoring the performance of counting officers and their suppliers, and I have no reason to believe that there is any risk to the integrity of the administration of the postal voting process.”