THE government has been warned not to go ahead with plans to extend the postal voting in elections following allegations of fraud and abuse in East Lancashire.

Pendle peer Lord Greaves branded proposals to turn all public election into all-postal voting elections "a retrograde and very dangerous step".

In the debate on the Queen's Speech in the House of Lords he referred to pilot projects in Blackburn, Burnley and Pendle.

He said: "The pilots have been widely seen as improving turnout, which I think means increasing turnout, but there is a very important difference between the number of votes sent back and the number of people who actually send those votes back.

"A great deal of evidence shows that postal voting is associated with a lot of low level, fairly benign fraud, and that it can be, and in some cases is, associated with very severe and organised electoral fraud."

He said that from some of the local election pilots that had taken place, and from postal votes in other places - particularly Oldham, Blackburn, Burnley and Pendle, all of which had led to police investigations and complaints - it was clear that postal voting could easily be abused.

Lord Greaves added: "The safeguards are simply not there to make sure that the people vote in person - that someone else does not vote for them - and in private, without anyone standing over their shoulder telling them what to do and watching how they do it.

"The classic way of doing fraud is that an activist from the party - someone's agent - follows the postman and picks up the votes.

"They either make sure that they are filled in there and then - they might allow them to do it in private or stand over them and make sure they have done it properly (they might want to check all the votes before they are put in the envelopes) - or simply take them away and get them filled in.

"All that has happened in a number of places recently.

"I am not saying that it is rife across the country but, in certain places and in certain communities, it is very dangerous.

"If politicians can cheat, some politicians will cheat. Widespread postal voting is wide open to people who want to cheat.

"Under the present circumstances and without inventing some very substantial new ways of stopping the abuse, it is a recipe for widespread electoral fraud, voting corruption and, inevitably, a number of activists - probably from all political parties - ending up in prison."