THE chief electoral officer for Northern Ireland. Mr Pat Bradley, has warned of apparent widespread abuse of the postal voting system in Northern Ireland which potentially could swing marginal seats such as West Tyrone, Mid Ulster, and West Belfast.
Voting was brisk in the North's 18 constituencies from early morning yesterday. Even before the usual teatime rush of voters almost half of the electorate of 1.18 million had marked their polling cards. The numbers were swelling throughout the evening, pointing to a possible record poll in the North.
Mr Bradley spoke earlier of election times when people with senile dementia have had miraculous cures, and how students couldn't spell "university". As warm sunshine and a committed and psyched up electorate ensured high polling, Mr Bradley explained that under the legislation his office had to allow more than 40,000 "absent votes" to be cast by post or by proxy.
In Mid Ulster and West Tyrone where SDLP, Sinn Fein and unionist candidates are involved in knife edge three way contests there are more than 5,000 of these votes in each constituency.
In 1983, the Rev Willie McCrea held Mid Ulster for the DUP by only 78 votes from Mr Danny Morrison of Sinn Fein and again here, and in neighbouring West Tyrone, forged or false postal votes could swing the result.
Forged postal votes could also have implications for the result in West Belfast where there are more than 1,000 "absent" votes, and where Mr Gerry Adams for Sinn Fein is striving to win back the seat from Dr Joe Hendron of the SDLP. The outcome could depend on which activists falsely obtain the most polling cards.
Mr Bradley was not blaming parties for organising such forgeries but said activists within parties might "take it upon themselves to fiddle the system". He said it was up to politicians to introduce new laws to stop the abuse.
"In the meantime, though, we have been developing better intelligence based on computer checks of applicants which is helping us identify abuse," he explained. "It means that we can build up a historic profile of applicants."
This has been badly needed, based on some of Mr Bradley's accounts of detected or suspected abuse. "In one election, the applicant for a postal vote said he had both of his legs amputated. But when he applied in the next election he said he had to be on a skiing holiday in Austria.
"In another case, 39 patients in a hospital which had 55 patients suffering from senile dementia were sufficiently recovered to apply for postal votes when previously they were unable to sign their names." He also spoke of the high number of apparently dyslexic students. "I've had Northern students doing masters and PhDs in Cambridge and Oxford who can't even spell university. I remember one fellow who made a complete hames of the word architecture."
He also spoke of one parish where almost the entire Catholic population seemed to be heading on a pilgrimage to Lourdes, necessitating them to exercise their democratic right by postal vote.
