Electoral Fraud

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we have been through that debate over an extended period. The Government are not persuaded that the original ID card scheme was necessary. It would be extremely costly. As far as voting is concerned, the level of allegations of voting fraud and impersonation is remarkably low. There were in the order of 179 allegations of different sorts of electoral fraud last year, for example, which is within a range of confidence as to the problems we face.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Many believe that postal voting fraud is widespread. Is my noble friend confident that it is not?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, postal vote fraud has always been there. I am old enough to remember constituencies in which representatives of at least one party would go round old people’s homes and fill in the ballot papers with the matron. I will not name which parties might have been engaged in that. That is not new. Postal vote fraud is a problem with which we are all concerned. That is why postal vote identifiers have now been tightened up.