Ard M -

The "Representation of the People Acts" alow for any Candidate or his agent (Election or Polling) to request that the presiding office (The Clerk in Charge of a Polling Station) put the "Statutary Questions" to any voter presenting themselves. As these resolve around indentity, and multiple voting then some form of identity should be produced If formally demanded.

Postal voters have to have thier declaration of identity form witnessed by another and the truth of indentity vouched for.

Impersonation is not a problem in the UK - In fact in many years as an Agent I have only had to use this power once. That was as a result of good intelligence that the Nationalist Party were collecting the "Notification of Poll" Cards from the dead, dying, or absent in one particular ward.

We provided the presiding officers at the polling station with a list of the dead etc., and a written request that if these persons presented themselves then they were to be challenged.

As a spoiler, on the eve of election day I informed my oposite number that we were doing this - And received a mouthfull of Abuse.

Obviously we had upset thier "cunning little plan", I never did find out what thier plan B was. My candidate won, with an absolute majority.

I suppose the moral is, if your going to try to rig the vote don't boast about it in the Pub where people are listening.

Funnly enough we did catch one, a student doing it for a prank, which the Police, quite correctly dealt with as a "caution".

In Canterbury some years ago the polling day returns indicated that the dead and dying were voting in one ward. I had a beer with the Conservative Agent who checked her records and found the same anonamly.

Nothing we could easily prove in a court of law, and as the result seemed to be uneffected we caught the Liberal Organiser in the back bar of the "Maidens Head" and informed him that next time we'd set him up for a conviction and left it at that.

It didn't happen again.

I am happy to say that impersonation is not a problem in the UK.

In Trinidad, where I once saw an election. people who voted were asked to dip thier thumbs in a pot of red dye, to stop multiple voting.

Never mind Ard M - I trust it was not a traumatic experience, and you can be happy with the one legitamate vote !.

Gareth