Local elections rigged in Britain

Guardian:

A high court judge ruled today that there had been "widespread fraud" surrounding the election of six Labour party councillors in Birmingham in last year's local elections.

Richard Mawrey QC, sitting as an election commissioner, said he was satisfied vote-rigging had occurred in the run up to the June ballot.

Launching a scathing attack on the current postal voting regulations, the judge said: "The system is wide open to fraud and any would-be political fraudster knows that it's wide open to fraud."

Responding to an earlier refusal from the government to overhaul the postal voting rules he said: "Anybody who has sat through the case I have just tried and listened to evidence of electoral fraud that would disgrace a banana republic would find this statement surprising."

Currently, a coalition of the Conservatives (39 seats) and Lib Dems (28) run the council, and the Labour opposition has 53 seats.

Mr Mawrey finished hearing the second of two petitions raised against the councillors last month. The first petition was brought against the Bordesley Green ward representatives - Shafaq Ahmed, Shah Jahan and Ayaz Khan - by the People's Justice Party. The three men walked out of the hearing on the first day after Mr Mawrey refused an application for an adjournment to allow them further time to prepare their case.

The second petition was raised against three Aston representatives - Mohammed Islam, Muhammed Afzal and Mohammed Kazi - by local Liberal Democrat supporters.

All six councillors strenuously denied rigging the ballots and being improperly elected. During the trials, which were held at the Birmingham and Midland Institute and lasted four weeks, the court heard evidence of wholesale theft of votes in the city, with thousands of postal ballots being diverted to a "safe house" where they were filled in on an "industrial scale".

Petitioners accused the defendants of using forgery and deception to collect and amend thousands of votes. The petitioners also accused the city's returning officer and chief executive, Lin Homer, of failing to discharge her duties in accordance with electoral law.

In a statement, the Labour party said all six councillors had been suspended from the party. It confirmed that Mike Griffiths, who heads up the party's national organisation committee, had been appointed to oversee activities.

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