General Election: Postal Voting Fraud

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

My Lords, I do not accept that. The latest figures published by the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Electoral Commission, on 19 March 2015, show that police forces had only 272 cases of alleged electoral fraud in the UK in 2014, out of a total of 29 million votes cast.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords, is not the first past the post system pretty much an undemocratic fraud, when the Government are elected by only 24% of the electorate and UKIP gets only one MP with 4 million votes? I might add that, although of course your Lordships’ House is appointed under patronage, with no pretence of democracy, we have only three Peers here whereas the Liberal Democrats now have 100, even though they got only a measly 2.4 million votes.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

My Lords, I am not quite sure how that is about electoral fraud, which is what we are discussing today.