Last day for proxy and postal vote applications

Tuesday, 26 April 2005 12:00 AM

Those wanting to vote either by post or proxy need to get their skates on, as applications need to be returned by the close of the working day.

Those who have not yet applied for a postal or proxy vote can download the form from here - but it would need to be returned to the electoral registrar in the constituency concerned, by the end of today.

Most electoral registrars are based within the local authority's council office.

Those who receive a postal vote, cannot vote in the normal way at a polling station, but can hand in their completed postal vote card to the registrar at a polling station if it has not been posted in time.

A record number of people are expected to vote by post in this election (15.5 per cent of the electorate), and while this is likely to boost turnout, it has also led to concerns about fraud.

At the beginning of April, the judge in the high-profile Birmingham fraud case said that postal voting was "hopelessly insecure" and "short of writing 'Steal Me' on the envelopes, it is hard to see what more could be done to ensure their coming into the wrong hands".

With Parliament not sitting, legislation cannot be tightened-up for this election, but it is highly likely that whoever wins will look closely at the problem.

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