Asian women 'denied free votes'

Sonia's identify has been concealed in order to protect her

Some Asian women are being denied the right to a free vote in Birmingham, it has been claimed.

The BBC has spoken to one woman who says male relatives told her who to vote for while other women had been made to sign already-completed forms.

Her claim has been backed up by Respect Councillor Salma Yaqoob, who represents Birmingham's Sparkbrook ward.

She said women in the city were being "emotionally blackmailed" and the only solution was to abolish postal voting.

The city has witnessed scandals over postal voting before when two local election results ended up being quashed four years ago because the system had been rigged.

The blackmail's applied in a widespread way and that makes people feel like they can't have confidence in the democratic system Councillor Salma Yaqoob

The city council said it had since introduced security measures to prevent fraud.

But Sonia, whose real name has been concealed to protect her, told BBC News this was not the case.

She said: "I've actually had quite a few people that I know that have had to vote postal vote because they've had pressure from their families.

"So they've actually been given a postal vote to sign and obviously whoever's got them to sign it has actually ticked off whoever they feel they should vote for."

She added: "I was really looking forward to it because it was my first vote and obviously I had the chance to have my own say.

"When I was put under quite a lot of pressure because of the way I thought, I mean, I just didn't want to vote last year because of how much pressure I got from the family."

'Taken away'

Ms Yaqoob said the problem was widespread.

She said: "When it comes to voting people are pressured, there's emotional blackmail.

"The blackmail's applied in a widespread way and that makes people feel like they can't have confidence in the democratic system."

She added: "The secret vote has been taken away through the abuse of the postal vote system.

"So unless you've got a really valid reason for not being able to go down to your local polling station we really should not have (elections) in this way."

The Electoral Commission said such incidents were isolated and voting on demand had successfully increased voter turnout.