A group of observers say it has “major concerns” about the integrity of voting in the Gorton and Denton by-election.
Polls closed at 10pm on Thursday in what is expected to be an extremely tight three-way race between the Greens, Reform UK and Labour.
Democracy Volunteers, a group given access to polling stations by the Electoral Commission, says it deployed deployed four “accredited election observers” at 22 of the 45 polling stations in the constituency.
The group says it witnessed a significant volume of “family voting” where two voters “either confer, collude or direct each other on voting”.
The team claims this happened in 15 of the 22 polling stations observed, some 32 cases in total, nine cases in one polling station alone.
Manchester city council has said the alleged concerns were not reported to them and criticised Democracy Volunteers for waiting until polls closed to make their claims public.
John Ault, Director of Democracy Volunteers, said: “Today we have seen concerningly high levels of family voting in Gorton and Denton.
“Based on our assessment of today’s observations, we have seen the highest levels of family voting at any election in our 10 year history of observing elections in the UK.’
“We rarely issue a report on the night of an election, but the data we have collected today on family voting, when compared to other recent by-elections, is extremely high.
“In the other recent Westminster parliamentary by-election in Runcorn and Helsby we saw family voting in 12 per cent of polling stations, affecting 1 per cent of voters. In Gorton and Denton, we observed family voting in 68 per cent of polling stations, affecting 12% of those voters observed.”
A spokesperson for the Acting Returning Officer said: “Polling station staff are trained to look out for any evidence of undue influence on voters. No such issues have been reported today.
“If Democracy Volunteers were so concerned about alleged issues they could and should have raised them with us during polling hours so that immediate action could be taken. We have operated a central by-election hub which was has been rapidly responding to reported issues during the day, in liaison with the police – who had a presence at every polling station – where necessary.
“It is extremely disappointing that Democracy Volunteers have waited until after polls have closed to make such claims.”
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