Rally - Postal voting "on demand" was introduced in 2001. Widespread abuse has ensued. Abuse of the democratic system is extremely grave. Once people lose trust in democracy they will seek alternative means to have their voices heard. It isn't something that can be dismissed as just part and parcel of having a more convenient way of voting.
There could be ways of tightening up the process but so far the Electoral Commission has not acted. If people can avoid using it then they really ought to.
Just one of many, many articles on the web about the abuse of the postal voting system....
www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/apr/05/politics.localgovernment
"A senior judge made a scathing attack on the postal voting system yesterday, condemning the government for complacency in the face of fraud which would disgrace a "banana republic".
Richard Mawrey QC, presiding over a special election court in Birmingham, warned that there were no realistic systems in place to detect or prevent postal voting fraud at the general election. "Until there are, fraud will continue unabated," he said
....In a damning judgment which ran to 192 pages, he said the system for registering postal vote applications was "hopelessly insecure". There was no way of checking whether the person who had applied for the vote was the legitimate voter.
Postal ballots were sent out in ordinary mail and were clearly identifiable. "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," he said.
There had been "widespread theft" of postal votes, either en masse from corrupt postal workers or on a smaller scale from the letterboxes of householders, the court heard.
A lack of effective policing meant that fraud was compounded, Mr Mawrey said. Returning officers had neither the powers, resources or authority to investigate suspicious applications for postal votes, and the police were poorly trained to detect it."