'Vote fraud' referred to the police
ELECTORAL officials uncovered 49 cases of suspected postal voting fraud in Northern Ireland, it has been revealed.
Chief electoral officer Douglas Bain, who published his annual report yesterday, said he was disappointed his warnings had been ignored in 2008/09.
His office provided all staff processing postal and proxy vote applications with guidance on checks to be carried out and warned them to reject all applications that did not comply with the legal requirements.
Mr Bain said: "It was disappointing that, despite the very clear warnings given about the action that would be taken to identify postal voting fraud, I have had to refer 49 cases to the PSNI for investigation."
By the year end, all relevant staff had been briefed on signature recognition to identify potentially false signatures that needed consideration by a handwriting expert.
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Weather for Belfast
Tuesday 29 May 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 12 C to 21 C
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