Introduction. The Right to Vote. The Mechanism of Voting. Nomination of a Candidate. Election Expenses. Challenging the Result of an Election. The Problem of Marketized Politics and a Possible Solution
Bob Watt, BA (CNAA), BCL (Oxon). After working for sixteen years, latterly as a biochemistry technician, and in a variety of voluntary roles, Bob Watt studied at Oxford Polytechnic where he was awarded a first class honours degree in Law and Politics. He then studied at Balliol College, Oxford where he was awarded the BCL having studied employment law, comparative human rights, legal and political theory, and the philosophy of the common law. Bob is now a Senior Lecturer in Laws at the University of Essex. His main interests are in employment law, public and electoral law, and legal and social policy and theory.
'Next week's general election may indeed be decided by the courts if the result is close, according to Mr Watt, author of UK Election Law: A Critical Examination (to be published in October by GlassHouse Press).' The Daily Telegraph, Thursday April 28, 2005 'The results of the forthcoming General Election could be tainted by fraud because of inadequacies in the postal voting system, a top academic has warned. Bob Watt, a senior lecturer in law at Essex University, said the potential for corruption, the procedures for postal voting could be in breach of the European Convention of Human Rights. Postal voting was opened up to anyone who wanted to use it in 2000, with the Representation of the People Act. Before that, it had only been possible for an elector to cast a vote if an individual case was made for a specific reason such as a debilitating illness. The number of applications for postal votes has soared from 2% of the electorate in the last general election to an estimated 15% in the new poll. IN the Colchester constituency, around 8,500 applications have already been received, in Braintree around 11,000, in Tendring around 10,000 and in North Essex, around 5,500. But in the wake of the recent ruling on corrupt elections in Birmingham in which Commissioner Richard Mawrey QC described "levels of electoral fraud which would disgrace a banana republic" - Mr Watt said postal voting could lead to candidates wrongly being declared MPs. "First, there is a secrecy issue. If you are using postal voting, how can you know that people in their own homes are not sharing their votes around or that someone isn't helping them vote?" said Mr Watt, whose book UK Election Law: A Critical Examination is published later this year. Second, it is possible for a corrupt person to apply for a postal vote on your behalf. They cold apply for a number of postal votes, and , as in the Birmingham case, sit in a warehouse, fill tem in, and send them back. Then, if you turned up to a polling station to vote - or more likely, you didn't - your vote would have already been cast. Mr Watt said if there were no procedure to stop that happening - which Commissioner Mawrey in Birmingham had observed - the system constituted a breach of Article Three of the First Protocol of the European Convention of Human Rights, whereby the whereby the Government is obliged to guarantee a method of free and fair voting . Earlier this week, a Labour party agent and a returning officer told the EADT they believed the system was secure and that every efforts were being made to check the authenticity of votes.' East Anglian Daily Times, Friday April 22, 2005
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