Telegraph reader Arthur Holmes,of Langho, today uses our Soapbox feature to express concern about a new scheme aimed at encouraging more people to vote.

THE most disastrous Home Secretary in living memory is now tinkering with our democracy to the disadvantage of thousands of voters.

An experiment, already acclaimed as likely to give the Labour Party an electoral advantage at the next municipal elections in May this year, has been foisted upon local electors.

It is another ill thought out scheme which has been arrogantly announced before it has even been passed through Parliament.

The present rules of unscrupulous fair play in elections are well established. Everyone who is qualified to vote should be able to do so on a single suitable day at a convenient local polling station, with proxy and postal votes for those unable to attend for specific genuine and approved reasons.

That voting should be held in a secure place in an orderly manner under the control of an impartial presiding officer and his staff.

Candidates and their agents are also allowed to enter the polling stations to ensure that the proper conduct of the election is being observed.

Elections in England are generally held on Thursday, which does not offend the religious conventions of Muslims (Friday), Jews (Saturday) or Christians (Sunday). The intention is, in all matters, to give each voter an equal opportunity to exercise the franchise. In fact it is a level playing field. Level playing fields are not what the Blairs and Straws are all about. They took away our right to select our own local MEPs. Now the party monopolies select them and no one knows who their MEP is.

Now, at one stroke they are about to manipulate the rules of fair play of our voting procedures. All polling stations will be open, as usual, on Thursday May 4 from 7am to 9pm. However, if you live within walking distance of Blackburn shopping centre, or Darwen Town Hall, or you travel to either of these two town centres to shop on the Saturday before the official polling day, you will, between the hours of 9am and 5pm, be able to vote for candidates in any of the 22 wards in the borough.

It is hard luck if you live in Turton and shop in Bolton; hard luck if you live in any outlying village or estate and cannot afford the bus or taxi fare into town. It is too bad if you dislike the crowds or the overstretched free parking on a Saturday.

In Blackburn, I know from personal experience that impersonation at elections is on the increase. Impersonation means that someone votes by applying for and/or uses a ballot paper issued against some other person's name.

This is a serious criminal offence and the presiding officer has to be very alert on polling day to look for people attending to vote more than once. If some votes have been cast in person at another place on another date, then the ability of the presiding officer to detect this fraud would be seriously diminished. Voting in 22 wards in one place will be an administrative nightmare for any presiding officer. If the electorate is to be assured of fair play, then each vote should be placed in the correct box for that polling district, counted at the main count and kept separate, even after the count, as an insurance against fraud.

Any other method will be open to suspicions of gerrymandering. For example, a few years ago in Blackburn local elections, 70 votes did not have the official imprint, which the presiding officer is responsible for placing on each ballot paper at the time of issue.

These were invalid and, strangely enough were all for one candidate in one polling district. Had they made a difference to the result, then legal action could have been taken as it was possible to identify the polling district.

While the presiding officer has a responsibility to prevent interference with voters in the polling station, the intimidation of voters about to enter the polling station is also an offence.

This is now most prevalent in a number of wards in Blackburn. People organise gangs to accost voters in order to put pressure on them as they are entering the polling station. Police presence is required in order to curtail this criminal intrusion of people's rights.

It is typical of the Home Secretary, with declining police numbers, to introduce a cockeyed idea that will require extra police on duty -- particularly in Blackburn, where the poll is being conducted in a very insecure, busy thoroughfare.

I am told that the cost of this Saturday poll is £4,000 before any provision is made for the cost of a police presence.

DO you feel strongly enough about an issue to get up on your soapbox and tell the whole of East Lancashire about it? Soapbox is a column giving people the chance to do just that.

If you want to highlight an issue close to your heart, then write an article of no more than 800 words and send it to: Soapbox, c/o newsdesk, Lancashire Evening Telegraph, High Street, Blackburn BB1 1HT.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.