MPs call for action over 'fraudulent' postal ballots

MPs have stepped up calls for action to stamp out voting fraud amid warnings that the system of postal ballots may be damaging trust in elections.

Conservatives demanded ministers introduce a new system to register voters to combat fraud after it was claimed that voting irregularities in wards hit by a scandal in Birmingham were worse than previously thought. Liberal Democrats said they were considering withdrawing support for postal ballots. Senior figures said Labour's decision to allow all voters to apply for postal ballots left the system open to fraud.

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Electoral administrators said they were put under unprecedented pressure by new safeguards designed to combat postal voting fraud. For the first time this year, postal ballots must be signed by voters and checked against sample signatures by returning officers.

Ed Davey, chief of staff to the Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell, said: "When you get stories of fraud in respect to elections with postal voting, more and more people are worried that the democratic process is not being upheld."

Oliver Heald, the Tory spokesman on constitutional affairs, said: "This is an issue of enormous concern and cuts to the heart of our democracy.."

Bridget Prentice, the Constitutional Affairs minister, said: "We will take a very careful analysis of what has happened with the Electoral Commission, to see if there is anything we need to do to make elections as fair and as open as possible."