NEW laws on postal voting have been proposed in a bid to prevent fraudsters following in the footstep of a disgraced East Lancashire councillor. We look at whether the Electoral Administration Bill goes far enough.

WITH today's technology you would expect the simple process of casting your vote to be secure and free from manipulation.

But since postal voting was widely introduced in 2001, the system has been branded wide open to fraud and one that would "disgrace a banana republic".

In East Lancashire this has been underlined by some postmen and women being given police escorts as they deliver ballots.

And Blackburn councillor Mohammed Hussain was last April jailed for three years the biggest sentence ever for postal vote fraud for trying to rig an election.

And while campaigners welcome moves to tighten up the process ahead of the May elections, they cannot help but wonder what has taken so long.

Ribble Valley Tory MP Nigel Evans said: "I am very pleased at this move but it is long overdue.

"The recent court case where our electoral system was compared by the judge to a banana republic' highlights the urgency of bringing forward these moves."

How the country got into a position where its once proud election system can so easily fall victim to fraud can be traced to falling voter turnouts.

Postal voting was introduced after studies found many people aged under 35 said they were too busy to visit their polling station.

The number of people eligible for postal voting has been extended at almost every election since and turnouts have increased.

But in this rush for votes security doesn't seem to have been the top priority.

The case of Mohammed Hussain highlighted the flaws.

Hussain, 62, was a councillor for Bastwell. In the 2002 election he faced intense pressure to keep his seat.

The LibDems and Tories worked together and to avoid a splitting the vote, fielded just one candidate between them.

Hussain arranged for five people he knew to collect votes from householders. Each person collected around 50 ballot papers from residents and signed themselves off as the witness to a cast vote.

Hussain got a shock on election night as he won by 865 votes meaning he would have been victorious without the 250 rigged votes.

Police launched an investigation after a complaint from the Conservative group, but their inquiry headed into unchartered waters and would take three years to complete.

Gathering evidence was complex and little-known court orders which took months to obtain were needed to view confidential ballot papers.

Officers also found that people whose vote had been stolen' were unwilling to talk.

Det Insp Neil Hunter led the inquiry and said it was one of the most complex inquiries he had ever undertaken.

But he believes the new laws will make it easier to either prevent or investigation fraud.

Postal ballot papers will have to be submitted 11 days before the close of poll so papers can be checked. At the time Hussain masterminded his fraud, the papers could be submitted until election time, meaning there was no chance to spot that five people had signed off 50 votes.

In addition applying "undue influence" over a voter will become an offence, which could deter people like those who gathered up votes for Hussain.

Ballot papers will also get barcodes so vote cannot be manipulated with false names.

DI Hunter, who now sits on the government's electoral committee to advise them about tackling fraud, said: "Any improvements that can be made to make the process as transparent as possible have to be a step in the right direction."

However not everyone is convinced. Pendle Peer Lord Tony Greaves has led the campaign into tightening up the postal voting system.

He believes the proposals do not go far enough and has tabled 35 amendments before the Bill arrives in the House of Lords on Tuesday.

Lord Greaves said the key amendment he was striving for was introducing individual registration with a person's signature, rather than household registrations.

He added: "While this is a move in the right direction and I am pleased that the government has been listening, much more needs to be done."