Voter fraud? Must be an election due…

ONCE EVERY FOUR YEARS, April becomes not just the month that begins with April Fool’s Day, but carries on as April Fool’s Month. We’ve already seen the traditional seasonal attacks on Jeremy Corbyn – now here come the allegations of voting fraud. There must be an election due.

Over recent years, Tower Hamlets has been known as the home of voting fraud. It’s a totally undeserved reputation which the borough hasn’t earned. Rumours about voting integrity really took off when Cllr Lutfur Rahman broke the mould and was elected Mayor. Right wing newspapers – the Telegraph and the Standard – assiduously gave the rumours and allegations plenty of coverage. It was only proven cases of wrongdoing that were in short supply.

Voters waiting outside the Troxy are jubilant to hear that Lutfur Rahman has been elected mayor as a result of their “voting fraud” (or “popularity” as we call it round here).

One of the best examples came in a story in the Telegraph on 21st April 2012, which suggested that Ken Livingstone’s supporters had been “harvesting” ballot papers. Among general assertions and conjecture came this bit:
“A third resident took a picture of one of Mr Rahman’s councillors, Aminur Khan, holding a sheaf of papers which the resident said were ballot papers. Mr Khan categorically denied last night that he had been involved in collecting any ballot papers.”

Note that the anonymous resident had not been concerned enough to report this sighting to the Council’s election fraud hotline: he or she had only mentioned it to a journalist. Note that the paper did not publish the photograph the un-named resident had allegedly taken. What this quote comes down to is that Cllr Khan was seen in a ward where there was a by-election, holding some paper.

Campaigners seldom go out canvassing without copies of the electoral register so that they can check whether the person they are talking to does actually have a vote – and many of them keep a record of people’s voting intentions or special concerns. It would have been reasonable to assume those were the lists Cllr Khan was holding. However, faced with journalists crawling over the ward asking residents if they have seen any of the prevalent voting fraud, an anonymous resident has interpreted “a sheaf of papers” as postal votes.

The irony is that postal votes have to be sealed in an envelope to be valid. Any allegation of seeing a councillor flaunting collected postal votes would have to be based on a resident having spotted a “sheaf of envelopes”, not “papers”.

The story – which ends by reporting that Cllr Khan “categorically denied” he had collected ballot papers, which obviously makes him sound guilty – was written by Andrew Gilligan. In August 2017 it was reported that the Sunday Telegraph had apologised and paid damages to a man it had wrongly accused of being an “Islamist activist” who was trying to undermine the Government’s anti-terrorism strategy.  That story was written by Andrew Gilligan.

John Biggs briefs journalists at the 2014 election count – including Ted Jeory and Andrew Gilligan.

The latest accusations come in an article in the Evening Standard, dated 4th April. Tower Hamlets – the clue’s in the name – is a borough of small areas, each very different from the other. Which “Hamlet” did the Standard chose for the picture to accompany its article reporting on “new fraud claims”?
•Was it a bit of world famous Canary Wharf – home to the bankers whose cavalier attitude to probity helped spark the 2008 global economic crash from which the world economy has yet to recover? Nope.
•Was it the Tower of London – where unelected rulers of England who had come to power by force of arms locked up their political enemies without trial? Nope.
•The Standard article was accompanied by a photograph of Whitechapel market, centring on a group of women in burkas shopping from a veg stall run by a man with a beard. Because you would choose a photo of people of Asian appearance to accompany an article on allegations of voter fraud, wouldn’t you?

Because the British establishment has a view on how easy it is to manipulate Muslims, doesn’t it? As an infamous Election Court Judge once commented:
“A sophisticated metropolitan readership might smile patronisingly on the earnest strictures of the Bishops of the Church of England but many traditionalist and pious Muslim voters of Tower Hamlets are going to accept the word of their religious leaders as authoritative.”

The Standard article goes on to report that there have been 39 new allegations of “corruption”, including complaints of bribery, forgery and ballot tampering, 28 of which are being investigated by the police. The Tower Hamlets population is over 300,000. Bad and wrong though 28 cases of fraud would be, that’s a fraud allegation rate of roughly 0.01% of the population.

The allegations are reported to have come from:
•councillors and candidates (there’s quite a lot of those, so it’s hard to identify who is blowing the whistle here – and whether it’s the dog kind of whistle);
•journalists (how have journalists come across fraud?);
•an MP (oops – that narrows it down a bit).

Cllr Peter Golds (left) surveys the 2014 Election Count from the balcony – together with Andrew Gilligan.

And Tory Councillor Peter Golds helpfully confirms that “Fraud is a huge issue here.” Huge? 0.0001%? And that’s just the allegations. There was a by-election a few years ago at which over 150 allegations of fraud were referred to the joint team of the Returning Officer and police – of which a mere six (0.04%) had enough substance to be worth investigating and none of which were proved. Perhaps Cllr Golds meant to refer to “allegations of fraud” being a huge issue, rather than fraud itself – which, the facts suggest, is actually in very short supply.

Is this war of words in any way important – or is it just tomorrow’s chip wrappings? (Yes, we do eat chips in this borough – not just chapattis.) Yes, it is important – because the reputation of Tower Hamlets is important to our residents. Our young people apply to university and for employment, and when short-listers are making close judgement calls about application forms the fear is they will be prejudiced against applicants from this borough in comparison with others. You can just hear it, can’t you: “But she’s from Tower Hamlets Nigel – that’s the basket case place; let’s go with the safe application from Surrey.”

It is also important because the constant association of (a) voting fraud and (b) Asian-ness with this borough is re-inforcing some very negative and undeserved stereotypes that encourage hatred and hate crimes. We have had enough of being treated like this. Look at the facts. It is not we who are the April Fools.

•Read more about it:
Breakaway Labour Group sees fraud in Bangla vote
Tories in new attack on poor and BAME voters

[Adverts]