Election fraud. posted by Richard Seymour

This election, while offering moments of inspiration, is proving to be one of the dirtiest and most corrupt in British parliamentary history since the rotten boroughs. In part, this is because certain candidates feel they won't be able to win without issuing libels left right and centre. But in large part it is because of the huge potential for fraud inherent in the postal voting system. Already, three councillors, encouraged and supported by Labour, have defrauded their way into local seats . Two local officials have been suspended over 1000 unopened postal ballots. In some marginal constituencies, Channel Four news reports, postal voting has increased by as much as 500%, and their polls show that this could seriously skew the results in this areas.

In a particularly tight race in Bethnal Green & Bow, Oona King MP has been encouraging people to send their postal votes - guess - to her campaign headquarters , ignoring advice from the Electoral Commission. Oona King's response was that "We are working to an agreed set of rules we have had for decades" , despite the fact that the laws allowing anyone to apply for postal voting were introduced in 2000.

For the first time, international observers have been invited to monitor polls in Britain including in Tower Hamlets and Bethnal Green. The Evening Standard reports that: "The Crown Prosecution Service is already investigating 39 cases of alleged vote-rigging across the UK."

It is because of this that Respect has launched legal challenges to postal voting in collaboration with the People's Justice Party.

I note that Michael Howard MP has now come out to slag off the government for implementing these policies, but the Tories voted for them and they have also refused to implement many of the proposals of the Electoral Commission for combatting fraud.

ps: Note to Kevin Spacey. I saw you today in your little fake beard. I recognised you. Don't fucking think your silly cloth cap fooled me as you squeezed by in that cake shop. Yeah, I could have hassled you for an autograph worth £400 on e-bay. But your pathetic attempt to conceal your identity made me pity you. Consider yourself warned - stay in the Old Vic during lunch hour, you A-list fuck.