BBC reports the Birmingham Fraud

In elections on June 10th 2004 six Labour councillors were elected in Birmingham which involved over 1,500 fraudulently cast votes.

The results have been declared void and the polls in two wards must be rerun.
"The system is wide open to fraud and any would-be political fraudster knows that,"…. Judge Mawrey said evidence of "massive, systematic and organised fraud. The deputy high court judge said the system was "hopelessly insecure" and expressed regret that recent warnings about the failings had been dismissed by the government as "scaremongering".

He criticised the government's insistence that the current postal voting system was working, adding: "Anybody who has sat through the case I have just tried and listened to evidence of electoral fraud that would disgrace a banana republic would find this statement surprising."

Mr Mawrey had heard petitions lodged against six Labour councillors, who all strenuously deny that they abused the postal ballot system.

The first petition was brought by the People's Justice Party (PJP) against three representatives of the Bordesley Green ward, Shafaq Ahmed, Shah Jahan and Ayaz Khan.
The second petition was raised by Liberal Democrat supporters against three Aston representatives, Mohammed Islam, Muhammed Afzal and Mohammed Kazi.


Unsealed ballots

During the Electoral Court hearings, (The first for many years) which were held at the Birmingham and Midland Institute yook 4 weeks, Judge Mawrey heard how the trio were caught operating a "vote-rigging factory".

The police described how they found Mr Islam, Mr Afzal and Mr Kazi handling unsealed postal ballots in a deserted warehouse in the city at night.

The petitioners also accused the city's returning officer and chief executive Lin Homer of failing to discharge her duties in accordance with electoral law.

Judge Mawrey said that Ms Homer "threw the rule book out of the window" to deal with overwhelming numbers of postal vote application forms received.

West Midlands Police told BBC News that they were currently not pursuing a criminal inquiry.