It now looks as though there will be more fully postal ballots than ever before in the Euro Elections on June 10. A Lib Dem move to restrain the Government was thwarted last week and the whole North-West region will vote on this basis.

As someone who has spent a lot of time “pounding the streets” as an activist I share all the concerns about security and fraud. Imagine a large house converted into bed-sitters with one letter box. What is to stop someone taking and using all the 10 or 20 voting packs that are delivered? There is also the total reliance on the Post Office that is plagued with industrial difficulties. What better pressure point than not handling the election mail? Also items get lost in the post.

One of the great tricks that activists of all parties get up to is to steal the leaflets of the opposition party. You do your delivery just behind the other party deliverer and then extract the leaflets that havn’t been put through the letter box properly or are lying in a porch. This goes on all over the country at every election. Imagine the temptation if instead of a leaflets that voting packs are within the reach of the deliverer?

What is to stop the strongest personality in a household effectively ordering his partner and children to vote in a particular way? Any canvasser will tell you that dozens of people, usually women, say on the doorstep that voting is a matter for the man and not for them. Until now they have had the security of the secrecy of the polling booth. With this system that will not be possible

No Government proposes any changes to the electoral system without working out what is in it for them & I’m sure that Downing Street figures that higher turnouts will help Labour.

You do get impersonation at the moment but you have to stand before a clerk and tell them your name. That’s a whole lot tougher than filling in a form & popping it in the post.

This is going to cause Labour a lot of trouble.