Annabelle Bamforth
Officials in Glasgow are investigating ten suspected cases of electoral fraud following the historic Scottish independence referendum on Thursday.
Colin Edgar of the Glasgow city council said that police were called in after ten occurrences of alleged fraud took place.
“We’ve had a number of suggestions over the course of the day that people have turned up at the polling station to vote and they appear to have voted already,” said Edgar. “So what’s happening tonight is we know which boxes those votes went into and we know the numbers on the votes, so the police have asked us to identify those votes, to take them away, keep them for evidence and hand them to them.”
Edgar said that fraud could have taken place because voters are not required to present identification at polling places in UK elections.
“Somebody turned up to vote, they gave their name, the presiding officer went to cross off their name on their list of voters to give them a ballot paper and found that their name had already been crossed off and a ballot paper already issued to somebody who apparently had the same name,” Edgar said.
“We contacted police straight away. The police asked us if we could recover the ballot papers, which we can because we know which box they’re in and we know the number on the ballot paper.”
Edgar stated that the ballots will be traced and secured before handing them to police. Each ballot contains an individual number, so staff members will be searching through the ballots to find the ten in question. If found, they will be separated from the hundreds of thousands of other ballots.
A spokesman for Police Scotland said the agency “takes the safety and security of the independence referendum extremely seriously and is working with partner agencies including local authorities and the chief counting officer to ensure the integrity of the ballot”.
Annabelle Bamforth is a New Hampshire-based writer focused on promoting liberty through new media and local politics.
Have a tip? Contact annabelle@benswann.com.
Officials in Glasgow are investigating ten suspected cases of electoral fraud following the historic Scottish independence referendum on Thursday.
Colin Edgar of the Glasgow city council said that police were called in after ten occurrences of alleged fraud took place.
“We’ve had a number of suggestions over the course of the day that people have turned up at the polling station to vote and they appear to have voted already,” said Edgar. “So what’s happening tonight is we know which boxes those votes went into and we know the numbers on the votes, so the police have asked us to identify those votes, to take them away, keep them for evidence and hand them to them.”
Edgar said that fraud could have taken place because voters are not required to present identification at polling places in UK elections.
“Somebody turned up to vote, they gave their name, the presiding officer went to cross off their name on their list of voters to give them a ballot paper and found that their name had already been crossed off and a ballot paper already issued to somebody who apparently had the same name,” Edgar said.
“We contacted police straight away. The police asked us if we could recover the ballot papers, which we can because we know which box they’re in and we know the number on the ballot paper.”
Edgar stated that the ballots will be traced and secured before handing them to police. Each ballot contains an individual number, so staff members will be searching through the ballots to find the ten in question. If found, they will be separated from the hundreds of thousands of other ballots.
A spokesman for Police Scotland said the agency “takes the safety and security of the independence referendum extremely seriously and is working with partner agencies including local authorities and the chief counting officer to ensure the integrity of the ballot”.
