Avoiding fraud in elections
From:
Stephanie Jenkins
Date:
May 05 10:41 UTC
Short link
Dermot: if I had known, you could have borrowed my son's voting card, which was
going spare :-)
My son is a student and is still loosely based at home in Headington (when
there isn't somewhere better to go). So I leave him on the Oxford electoral
roll. But he is also automatically registered to vote by his university.
Last week he chose physically to vote in his university town rather than to get
a postal vote in Headington, and used his second card.
There must be many students who potentially have two votes, and I wonder if
anyone bothers to check that they don't vote twice? If not, this is one
loophole that definitely needs plugging.
It also makes the turnout appear even lower than it is already, since a student
can only vote in one place so will presumably be counted in the percentage of
non-voters in the other.
Also there is a quick turnover in some Headington HMOs, which means that many
voting cards are probably delivered after students (and other short-term
tenants) have moved out, and anyone of the right sex could use them.
Things do need tightening up.
(I realize that this is a national topic rather than a local one, but I hope
people agree that it affects a university area like Headington/Marston at a
local level too.)