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| WALTHAM FOREST |  | | | WANSTEAD/WOODFORD | | | EPPING FOREST | | | | FEATURES | | | LEYTON ORIENT | | |
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Misconduct probe into Lib Dem vote
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| Cllr Farooq Qureshi during his period as Mayor of Waltham Forest (EL181-1008) |
RULES to prevent postal vote fraud were broken during the election for the Liberal Democrats' prospective Parliamentary candidate for Leyton and Wanstead, the returning officer (RO) has found.
Former Mayor of Waltham Forest, Cllr Farooq Qureshi, was selected ahead of nearest rival Nasser Butt to stand against sitting Labour MP Harry Cohen at the next general election.
But Mr Butt refused to accept the result and launched a formal complaint, which included allegations of misconduct during the campaign.
The RO's findings were published in two internal party reports, which have been leaked to the Guardian.
In the first, dated April 3, he admitted he had limited powers of investigation and stated his intention not to take further action over alleged racism, unauthorised use of a calling card and illicit overseas voting.
However he did find evidence that rules forbidding candidates or supporters from encouraging or helping someone to apply for a postal vote might have been broken.
The RO found a number of the identical envelopes containing applications for postal votes had similar handwriting on them, which did not appear to belong to the people who filled out the forms inside.
In the second report, dated April 8, the RO said he now believed a postal campaign had taken place and that all of the 16 suspicious postal votes registered a first preference for Cllr Qureshi.
The report stated: "The rules do not provide for me to carry out an investigation, merely to exclude those votes."
The revised count meant Cllr Qureshi was selected as the prospective parliamentary candidate by 55 votes to Mr Butt's 44.
In a letter to a senior party colleague, Mr Butt expressed concern that the RO was powerless to investigate his complaints in full and described the selection process as "tainted".
Cllr Qureshi said: "All the other candidates accepted the result. The complaints were investigated by the returning officer.
"The outcome was the same as on the night of the hustings, namely I was declared the winner. The candidate in question had the right of appeal but declined to do so and accepted the findings of the returning officer and the result."
10:18am Thursday 7th June 2007
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