Postal vote count getting underway

An army of more than 500 council staff in the region hasbeen called in every day for the last week to analyse the thousands of postal votes that have been flooding in.

More than 600,000 people are registered to vote by post in the region and, with strict new anti-fraud regulations in force for the first time at a General Election, some authorities have teams of 80 people working daily to sort the ballot papers.

The new laws were passed in the wake of a series of high profile scandals, most notably in Birmingham which in 2004 was likened to a "banana republic" by Elections Commissioner Richard Mawrey QC after hundreds of forged ballot papers were investigated at a city council election.

Despite the enhanced checks – votes now require a signature and a date of birth – voting reform campaigners fear the system is still open to abuse and warn any method away from polling stations cannot be completely secure.

Peter Stanyon, chairman of the Association of Electoral Administrators, said it was a massive logistical exercise.

He said: "Running from now until the general election, most councils will have large teams of people working until polling day.

"We work with software companies to read signatures that do most of the checking for us – but this will be the first General Election since the new regulations requiring signatures and dates of birth, and it has made it an election in itself running alongside the main operation.

"Councils will have put the systems in place to cope with the work, but it is still a massive task."

In the Yorkshire region 625,388 people are registered to vote by post.

The highest in the area is Leeds, with more than 90,000, but the highest percentage of the electorate is Doncaster, with nearly 30 per cent, followed by Rotherham, where a quarter of votes will be cast in the post.

A spokeswoman for Doncaster Council said it had more than 50 people working every day to cope with the workload.

She said the authority had worked with candidates and political parties to ensure awareness of fraud issues and compliance with legislation and national codes of conduct.

"Doncaster Council undertakes security checks throughout the postal voting process from the point of application to the completion of the opening," she said.

Local authorities in Yorkshire have refused to say how much the operation costs but are confident security can be maintained.

Dr Ken Ritchie, chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society, said it was worrying how many people were now registered to vote by post – Yorkshire has seen an increase of more than 100,000 since 2005.

He said: "It is a concern. Since 2005 they have added the security of a signature, but that is only an illusion of security and really only makes it a little bit more difficult.

"We wish the Government had not done it this way. Any voting away from the polling stations cannot be completely secure."

HUGE RISE IN REGISTRATIONS

More than 600,000 people registered to vote by post in the region – more than 100,000 more than the last election in 2005.

Leeds has the most people registered to vote by post – 80,000 – and will have 80 people a day working on sorting the votes.

South Yorkshire has the highest concentration of postal votes, with Doncaster having the highest percentage of the electorate in the region – 28.82 per cent.