There are various forms of cheating at elections but the most grievous one is using other people’s votes by impersonation or other means.

How is this done?  There are various ways, and this is one reason why there are international observers at many national elections throughout the world.

The problem exists even in Britain, where bringing a photographic form of identification is now necessary for voting in person at General Elections, introduced for the first time at this year’s General Election on 4th July and commenced at the English local elections in May 2024.

Postal votes

However, impersonation at the Polling Station is not the only form of voting fraud, nor even the easiest.  The easiest, and possibly the commonest, is abusing postal votes.

Postal voting is manifestly open to abuse and it is known to be abused.  In the privacy of one’s own home, voting is open to abuse by coercion and block voting. 

The rigging of votes is only one feature of the growing democratic deficit through postal votes.

Postal voting favours the larger, well-organised political Parties with administrative infrastructure, which may be why there is no appetite for reform or at least change among the major political parties.

Additionally, snap elections favour the major Parties who are more organized than smaller Parties and Independent candidates.

The extra period of time needed to allow for postal voting means that early postal voters have voted before all the details are known about the Parties’ plans.  There are notable examples of Party leaders announcing controversial policies after many postal votes have been cast.

As the percentage of people voting by post is increasing each year, it is strange, at the very least, that the Government is cracking down on Polling Station impersonation but doing nothing to eliminate voter fraud through postal votes.

As the major political parties are not calling for reform, I can only assume that they are all abusing it, otherwise one Party would be exposing the misbehaviour of another. 

The mantra that “people should stand for election” to publicize their views rings hollow when one realises that this equates with joining one of the major Parties, because it is so difficult for minor Parties to win seats.  Famously, UKIP gained about 4 million votes in the 2015 UK General Election but only one seat in the House of Commons, and current Polling predicts that Reform UK will secure a larger percentage of votes than the Lib Dems in the 2024 General Election, but with 12% of the vote Reform UK will gain no seats whereas with 10% of the vote the Lib Dems will overtake the SNP to become the third largest Party in the UK Parliament, with a smaller share of the vote!

This skewing of results perpetuates the two-Party dominance in Westminster, whereas people complain about the two-Party competition in America and the poor choice of candidates for the US President.

US Presidential Elections

It is reckoned by many that Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the 2020 US Presidential election because of fraudulent postal votes, relocating postal ballots and running them multiple times through the counting machines after hours.

The longer the postal voting process, as in the United States Presidential elections, the greater the opportunity to abuse postal voting.

Postal voting allows various forms of fraud. It is time to return to in-person voting. India is the world’s most populous democracy and it has a lengthy six-week process of in-person voting requiring close monitoring. Britain is small enough to return to in-person voting, while postal voting can continue for those who are legitimately unable to attend in-person.

The silence about reforming the voting system and postal votes in particular is a manifestation of the calculations made by the larger political parties to win by fair means or foul.

Nowadays, politicians and lobby groups cannot accept defeat.  Protests begin as soon as the result is declared.  The idea of playing fair and playing by the rules had been lost.  They are poor losers.

If the democratic deficit is not corrected soon, so that results are seen to be manifestly fair and reflecting the wishes of the electorate, it may result in a violent backlash from those who feel cheated by a biased system and who will not be governed by cheats who cannot play fair.

“If the blind lead the blind, they shall both fall into the ditch.”

Jesus Christ, Matthew 15:14