by James Harrison, Yahoo News
Fears have been raised about the impact of ‘family voting’ on the by-election result, but what is it?
The Green Party’s shock win in the Gorton and Denton by-election has been overshadowed by claims of illegal voting on polling day.
Hannah Spencer received 14,980 votes, 41% of ballots cast, to become the party’s fifth MP in the House of Commons on a humiliating night for Sir Keir Starmer that saw his party pushed into third behind Reform UK.
However, the integrity of the contest has been marred by “concerningly high” levels of so-called ‘family voting’ – an illegal practice where two voters use one polling booth and potentially direct each other on voting.
According to an election observer group monitoring the vote, as many as 12% of voters may have faced undue influence on the day, with family voting believed to have been observed at 15 polling stations its volunteers attended.
A spokesman for Manchester City Council, which was responsible for organising and running the contest said “no such issues” had been reported to its officials while voting was ongoing.
What is family voting?
Family voting is an illegal practice in which individuals or groups attempt to undermine the electoral process.
A report for the UN has previously described it as actions which deprive voters of their “right to cast a secret and independent ballot”.
The practice was formally banned in the UK with the 2023 Ballot Secrecy Act and makes it a criminal offence to be “near a polling booth when another person is at that booth … to influence that other person to vote in a particular way or to refrain from voting”.
Anyone found guilty of the offence faces a fine and up to six months in prison.
A report for the House of Lords stated the intended purpose of the new law was to address ‘family voting’, with areas such as the London borough of Tower Hamlets cited as somewhere it was thought to be particularly prevalent.
See: Major Concerns over Family Voting in Gorton and Denton Poll from Democracy Volunteers