GUIDANCE about proxy votes for election officers throughout the country will be updated in light of problems experienced in the Daneshouse area of Burnley when more than a quarter of the electorate claimed proxy votes.

Police are still looking into allegations of fraud in the May elections when 70.23per cent turned out to vote and 1,150 were casting proxy votes.

The town's MP Peter Pike forwarded a letter from Burnley Council chief executive Roger Ellis about the problems experiences in the Daneshouse Ward to Home Office Minister Mike O'Brien MP, minister for electoral matters.

In a letter Mr O'Brien says Mr Ellis' call for clearer, more comprehensive guidelines for registration officers would be borne in mind when future guidance was issued.

He says: "I understand Burnley Council's concerns about the unusually high incidence of proxy votes which occurred in the Daneshouse Ward at the local election and the possibility that there had been abuse of the proxy voting system.

"It is not appropriate for me to comment further while the police are continuing their investigations. "In the summary of the recommendations presented by the working party, there are a number of recommendations directed at the regulations on absent voting.

"These are primarily directed either at postal voting or at simplifying aspects of the absent voting application procedures in ways that should not increase the possibility of proxy voting fraud.

"I note Mr Ellis' disappointment that none of the recommendations are aimed at increasing the control of proxy voting, and the working party did in fact consider whether some restrictions should be introduced.

"In the end, it was in view of the possibility that further lessons may be learned from the police investigations in Burnley and elsewhere, that the working party did not consider it appropriate to make recommendations about proxy voting at this stage.

"I would not rule out a further review of this particular issue once the results of the police investigations are known."

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