‘High levels’ of illegal family voting in Gorton and Denton by-election

Nigel Farage has claimed a report of high levels of illegal family voting in the Gorton and Denton by-election “raises serious questions about the integrity of the democratic process in predominantly Muslim areas”.

On Thursday night an election observer group raised concerns over what it called “concerningly high levels of family voting” in the constituency.

Democracy Volunteers said they attended 22 of the 45 polling stations in the constituency, spending 30 to 45 minutes in each, and witnessed family voting in 15 of the 22 polling stations observed.

The group said they observed a sample of 545 individuals casting their votes and saw 32 cases of family voting in total, including nine cases in one polling station.

Family voting is an illegal practice where two voters either confer, collude or direct each other on voting and can involve husbands telling their wives how to vote.

The leader of Reform UK, which is in a tight three-way race with Labour and the Greens, said on X: “Incidents of family voting in Gorton & Denton reached the highest levels of any election in the past 10 years, says @SkyNews.

“This is deeply concerning and raises serious questions about the integrity of the democratic process in predominantly Muslim areas.”

Nadhim Zahawi, who last month defected from the Tories to Reform, claimed on Sky News that there had been “industrial-scale fraud” in Gorton and Denton.

Matt Goodwin, Reform’s candidate in the by-election, said: “Given the reports we are reading in UK media about family voting and sectarianism, I am deeply concerned about the extent to which the Gorton and Denton parliamentary by-election is a free, fair, and democratic election.”

John Ault, the director of Democracy Volunteers, said: “Today we have seen concerningly high levels of family voting in Gorton and Denton. Based on our assessment of today’s observations, we have seen the highest levels of family voting at any election in our 10-year history of observing elections in the UK.

“We rarely issue a report on the night of an election, but the data we have collected today on family voting, when compared to other recent by-elections, is extremely high.

“In the other recent Westminster parliamentary by-election in Runcorn and Helsby, we saw family voting in 12 per cent of polling stations, affecting 1 per cent of voters. In Gorton and Denton, we observed family voting in 68 per cent of polling stations, affecting 12 per cent of those voters observed.”

Anna Turley, Labour’s chairwoman, told BBC Newsnight the reports were “extremely worrying” and Zack Polanski, the Green Party leader, said he would support referring the issue to electoral authorities.

Reform UK Chair David Bull told Newsnight: “Electoral fraud is a stain on democracy. We would support reporting it and making sure that it’s done in the spirit and fairness with the law.”

A spokesman for the acting returning officer at the by-election said in a statement: “Polling station staff are trained to look out for any evidence of undue influence on voters. No such issues have been reported today.

“If Democracy Volunteers were so concerned about alleged issues they could and should have raised them with us during polling hours so that immediate action could be taken.

“We have operated a central by-election hub which has been rapidly responding to reported issues during the day, in liaison with the police – who had a presence at every polling station – where necessary.

“It is extremely disappointing that Democracy Volunteers have waited until after polls have closed to make such claims.”

[Source: Daily Telegraph]