Election observers say ‘concerningly high’ level of family voting in boothspublished at 23:01 GMT 26 February
23:01 GMT 26 February
Joshua Nevett
Political reporter
An election observer group has claimed its team witnessed “concerningly high levels” of family voting in the Gorton and Denton by-election.
Family voting is an offence that can be committed when a person casting a ballot in an election is joined in a polling booth by someone who intends to influence how they vote.
Electoral law protects the secrecy of ballots in polling stations.
Democracy Volunteers said they attended 22 of the 45 polling stations in the constituency, spending 30 to 45 minutes in each.
The group said it had seen family voting in 15 of the 22 polling stations observed.
The group said they observed a sample of 545 individuals casting their vote and saw 32 cases of family voting in total, including nine cases in one polling station.
John Ault, director of Democracy Volunteers, said: “Today we have seen concerningly high levels of family voting in Gorton and Denton.
“Based on our assessment of today’s observations, we have seen the highest levels of family voting at any election in our 10-year history of observing elections in the UK.
“We rarely issue a report on the night of an election, but the data we have collected today on family voting, when compared to other recent by-elections, is extremely high.
“In the other recent Westminster parliamentary by-election in Runcorn and Helsby we saw family voting in 12% of polling stations, affecting 1% of voters.
“In Gorton and Denton, we observed family voting in 68% of polling stations, affecting 12% of those voters observed.”