Post vote bid 'could delay poll'

Concerns have been raised over postal voting security

A legal bid to change the way postal votes are handled has started, amid claims it could delay May's elections.

Birmingham council Liberal Democrats leader John Hemming wants a judicial review of electoral procedures, following vote-rigging in the city.

Six Labour councillors were found guilty of postal vote fraud in local elections last year.

Labour has vowed to tackle fraud, while the Tories say postal voting is not the way to engage voters.

Mr Hemmings said the general election will be "wide open to fraud" without changes to postal voting procedures.

The prospective Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Birmingham Yardley said he had the backing of his party and was taking action because of the "very real likelihood" that dozens of inner city constituencies across the UK would be hit by vote rigging.

Secret ballot

He is asking the High Court to rule all postal votes cast in 5 May's election should be counted separately from non-postal votes.

Mr Hemmings also wants political parties to be allowed to check application forms for postal votes, and wants the period in which election petitions challenging alleged fraud can be raised to be increased from 21 days to two months.

The councillor claims the absence of a secure system by which people can vote by post contravenes the Human Rights Act because it compromises the secret ballot.

He said: "What I'm asking for is for small changes to the law of procedure for elections.

"I'm not trying to defer the General Election but if the judge determined it was unlawful and ordered the Prime Minister to change the law and he didn't and that started bouncing around ... there are a lot of interesting constitutional implications.

"If it is declared unlawful, the question is 'what happens?'."

Richard Mawrey QC, presiding as election commissioner over the Birmingham postal voting case ruled on Monday there was evidence of "massive, systemic and organised fraud".

Former home secretary David Blunkett called on Thursday for individual rather than household voter registration - backed up by a national ID card scheme.

The Tories said new guidelines were not enough to restore voter confidence, while the Lib Dems called for a halt to further expansion of postal voting.