British Election = Banana Republic

http://jmpolitics.blogspot.com

The British legal system has lambasted Blair and his party for running a banana republic voting system. The lead story in <b>The Guardian</b> today is a scathing attack on the British voting system and the Labour Party represented by six Labour councillors who scammed the postal voting system.

The Labour party has suspended the six men - but like the Abu Ghraib scandal, the people at the helm are off scott free!!

That's why I think all these people thinking about leaving the US instead of fighting for their beliefs are going to be disappointed when they get wherever they're going. They're going to be fighting another battle somewhere else.

and fight for their legal rights instead of fighting for democracy in other countries.

In Britain the legal system has come down hard on the scam.

But in America, Kerry and Edwards just gave in like wimps.

Jacob Matthan
Oulu, Finland

The general election will still be run with the same system - the Electoral Commission made some recommendations to tighten the system up last year, but the government didn't bother. The guilty men have been told they can't stand in the next election, but I don't think they've had a bigger punishment than that yet.

The denial is quite amazing - government spokesmen are saying "but this method of postal voting gets more people voting. You have to balance convenience with accuracy. We wouldn't want to do anything that made it hader to vote". It's not inaccuracy, it's fraud. Shoplifting is convenient, but that doesn't mean we should allow it.

we have vote-by-mail here exclusively in the state of Oregon and I love it. I think it works very well.

In Britain, one person in a household fills in a form (it's compulsory; used for choosing juires too) saying who the people are in the house over 18. There is, as far as I know, no check on this beyond a possible "I don't believe a house in that area could have 16 adults in it". Only that one adult signs the form, and sends it in by post.

Then any of the (presumed real) people can apply for a postal vote. For this, they have to sign (but no proof of identity is required)- but can ask for the voting form to be sent to any address in the country. So anyone in the house, or the postman, can easily steal other people's votes, and they won't know until they turn up to vote, and find someone else has done a postal vote on their behalf.

In some cases, people (heads of family, community leaders) have persuaded people to give them their genuine postal voting forms, and then altered the forms, and sent them in en masse.

Now you know why it's a 'banana republic' way of voting in the UK.