Some 45,000 British National Party leaflets for the Chelmsford constituency have “vanished” in the Post Office in a possible instance of electoral fraud so massive that the party’s national elections officer, Clive Jefferson, has called for the election in that region to be postponed.
“The Post Office have confirmed that they have a despatch note confirming receipt of the six palettes and more than 50 boxes of leaflets,” said Mr Jefferson.
The leaflets were delivered on time and were due to go out on the 23 April, timed to coincide with the arrival of the postal vote applications.
“This outrage is the single largest such case so far,” Mr Jefferson said. “We have had reports from all over the country about individual postmen throwing away small bundles of leaflets, but it is remarkable that an entire constituency’s leaflets have vanished.
“We have been to the police and have made a direct application to the returning officer, Steven Packham, to have the election postponed,” Mr Jefferson continued.
“Mr Packham initially denied that he has the ability to postpone the election. He does, of course. The last we heard from him was that he was taking further advice from the Electoral Commission.”
Mr Jefferson said the BNP had now had enough of this continuing subversion of democracy and was going to make a stand over Chelmsford.
“How can a free and fair election be run when our leaflets mysteriously vanish in such quantities?” he asked.
BNP News spoke to Graham Elson, the Post Office’s regional electoral manager for Anglia, who confirmed that an EL1 despatch note for the leaflets existed which “indicates that we have received them.”
Mr Elson added that the Post Office had offered to pay for a full reprint of the leaflets.
“This is unacceptable because the time frames involved will mean that possibly as many as 8,000 people will have already cast their postal ballots before our leaflets are even reprinted,” Mr Jefferson said.
“Time and time again we have seen blatant examples of electoral fraud being committed, and the elections still carry on as if nothing has happened. This has to stop,” Mr Jefferson said.
* Eastern regional organiser Paul Morris has been tasked with liaising with the local Post Office depot to sort the problem out, which appears to be far more widespread than just one constituency.
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