As the lawyers say “Cui bono?” or “Who benefits?” This most usually refers to who benefits in financial terms, but it needn’t necessarily refer only to financial aspects of criminal or any other matters. How did they come by this expression?
The Roman orator and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero, in his speech Pro Roscio Amerino, section 84, attributed the expression Cui bono? to the Roman consul and censor Lucius Cassius Longinus Ravilla:
L. Cassius ille quem populus Romanus verissimum et sapientissimum iudicem putabat identidem in causis quaerere solebat 'cui bono' fuisset.
The famous Lucius Cassius, whom the Roman people used to regard as a very honest and wise judge, was in the habit of asking, time and again, 'To whose benefit?'
So in light of this government’s wilful refusal to prevent, or even properly record, matters of electoral fraud, we have to follow Cicero’s rule. Who benefits? It is a racing certainty that if someone else was benefitting at the expense of the Labour party, the government would be all over the issue like a rash – it being a Labour party government.
You will not come away from this posting – or the link it’s extracted from – with any confidence in the integrity of our electoral system, any confidence that the fraud is “accidental”, or any confidence that this Labour government has the slightest intention of putting things right.
Cui Bono?
HOW MUCH ELECTORAL FRAUD IS THERE IN THE UNITED KINGDOM? HAS THE INTRODUCTION OF POSTAL VOTING ON DEMAND INCREASED ELECTORAL FRAUD?
Handout for presentation at the 20th Annual Seminar of the Association of Electoral Administrators
Brighton, 26 February 2007
Contrasting claims.
“ ... evidence suggests that it is rare ... Ministerial statement in the House of Commons “
“ ...the system invites fraud. Judge Richard Mawrey QC on the Birmingham election petitions “
“ … evidence suggests that it is very rare ... Ministerial statement in the House of Lords “
“ He said the current postal voting system was “wide open to fraud.” BBC report of verdict of Judge Peter Openshaw QC in the Blackburn case “
“ Electoral fraud is extremely rare ... President of the Association of Chief Police Officers “
“ It is the view of the SPU (Special Prosecutions Unit) that widespread use of postal votes has opened up a whole new area to be exploited by the fraudster, and the opportunity has been taken. Assistant Commisioner Andy Hayman, Metropolitan Police “
“ ... everyone agrees that electoral fraud is extremely rare. Minister, Department for Constitutional Affairs “
“ Chief Supt Dave Murray, of Thames Valley Police ... was alarmed by how easy it is to abuse the [postal voting] system. ... Police concluded that at least six per cent of postal votes cast in the Redlands ward [in Reading] were bogus. Report of letter to the Electoral Commission, Andrew Sparrow, Daily Telegraph “
“ ... there is no evidence to suggest that the actual level of fraud is widespread. Local Government Association Executive “
“ [There is]“a growing body of evidence that widespread absent vote fraud is taking place in the United Kingdom.” Resolution by 18 members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the council of Europe “
“ … electoral fraud ... remains a very rare occurrence. Statement by Department for Constitutional Affairs spokesperson in response to report on the Electoral Commission by the Committee on Standards in Public Life “
“... postal voting unlocked a pandora’s box that some unscrupulous people were able to exploit. John Turner, Chairman, Association of Electoral Administrators “
Has there been any research into the number of cases of electoral fraud or any central collection of data?
“ The Electoral Commission intends to commission research into this issue in 2003–04. Electoral Commission, December 2002 “ [note date]
“Reply by the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs to parliamentary question asking him to list cases of electoral fraud that have resulted in a custodial sentence in the last five years: I regret that information on electoral fraud cases has not been systematically collected or held centrally. The Electoral Commission is working with the Crown Prosecution Service to develop a process to identify and monitor electoral fraud cases. Hansard 11 November 2003 “ [note date]
“ Reply by Electoral Commission to Freedom of Information Act request made in 2006 by The Times: The Commission does not hold, and cannot compile, a complete list of electoral prosecutions and convictions, or allegations of offences. There is no GB-wide database of such allegations or offences across Great Britain, or for each country. Electoral Commission, June 2006 “ [then note this date. Compare to above dates]
“ We currently do not know the extent of electoral fraud because up until now, we have taken the ... view that this is Britain and such things do not happen here. There is now evidence that such things do happen here, although we do not know to what extent because we do not have the mechanisms or systems of audit to find out. Liberal Democrat MP House of Commons, 22 June 2005. “
“ Testimony before the Committee on Standards in Public Life: Nobody appears to have done detailed research in relation to it [electoral fraud]. Statement by a Minister in the Department for Constitutional Affairs,Committee on Standards in Public Life, evidence session held on 21 September 2006. “
There is a dearth of clear and comprehensive statistics:
No comprehensive statistics of electoral offences reported to electoral authorities, to the police or to the Crown Prosecution service.
No statistics on cases prosecuted or on the number of persons convicted;
No statistics of numbers prosecuted for electoral registration and postal voting offences;
No comprehensive statistics of number of persons receiving prison sentences;
No statistics on tendered ballots.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: A tendered ballot is a special ballot cast when an elector comes to a polling station and finds that a vote in his or her name has already been cast. The number of tendered ballots is thus an indication of the extent of incompetently carried out eletoral fraud. Competently carried out fraudulent voting does not risk discovery when the genuine elector comes to the polling booths: votes are cast in the names of electors known to be dead or abroad or in the names of non-exisitent persons whose names have been entered onto the register of electors.
How many investigations, prosecutions and convictions for electoral fraud have there been in recent years?
THE OFFICIAL VIEW
Since 1998 there have been only four recorded prosecutions for electoral fraud. Ministerial statements to both Houses of Parliament, April 2005.
OTHER EVIDENCE
Number of cases of “electoral offences” referred to the Crown Prosecution Service, 2000-2006
2000 48
2001 57
2002 51
2003 70
2004 61
2005 65
2006 38
[I suggest that comes out at a little more than four. We used to learn arithmetic when I went to school. Maybe mathematics changed with the new millennium? Or perhaps as far back as 1997?]
Article in the Sunday Times, 21 January 2007
Postal voting is a giant fiddle
Postal voting is a giant fiddle
Is electoral fraud “very rare” in Britain, as the Department for Constitutional Affairs still insists? Or should we believe Richard Mawrey QC, the judge in the infamous Birmingham vote rigging cases of 2005, that the government is “in denial” about standards of conduct in British elections — especially local elections — that “would disgrace a banana republic”? …
In April 2005 there was a ministerial statement to the Commons that there had been only four recorded prosecutions for electoral fraud in seven years. The operative word was “recorded”. Few cases were on a central record because there had been no effort to record them. …
When I finally received a set of basic statistics from the Crown Prosecution Service a few days ago, they revealed that there were no fewer than 390 cases of alleged electoral offences in the past seven years. It is not yet known how many of them resulted in prosecutions. What is certain is that they run a coach and horses through the government’s complacent claims.
Chief Superintendent Dave Murray, of Thames Valley police, reportedly wrote to the Electoral Commission in 2005 that vote riggers would develop “a feeling of untouchability” because the law made it so hard for them to be successfully prosecuted. Police had uncovered evidence of widespread postal voting fraud in the Redlands ward of Reading. Of 46 postal vote applications examined, only two were authentic. But the identity of those who had forged the applications could not be proved.
In several cases the number of forged votes has run into the hundreds or thousands. Mawrey’s estimate was of at least 1,000 forged votes in the 2004 elections in the Birmingham city ward of Aston and 1,500-2,000 in nearby Bordesley Green.
My analysis of some 20 cases shows that a majority of them involve wards in inner cities with high proportions of Asians. … A majority involve abuses of postal voting.
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Cui Bono?
Who benefits?
I seem to recall that this country once had an electoral system we could trust - before we started importing millions of people from cultures where electoral fraud is rife – and before this Labour government changed the rules on postal voting.
Cui Bono?
