Irish News
August 2, 2000

  
Ballot-box fraud is universal - Bradley

By Monika Unsworth

Handing over the reins of power at the end of this month, Northern Ireland's chief electoral officer, Mr Pat Bradley, says he knows more about sin than most. Having overseen elections for the last 20 years in a city where the "vote early, vote often" tag still sticks, he nevertheless defends his homeland: "I have yet to see a country without original sin, where there isn't electoral abuse or bribery or corruption of some sort."
 

Mr Bradley has had ample opportunity for comparison. His experience as chief electoral officer in one of the world's best-known trouble spots has taken him around the world to supervise critical elections in Malawi, Hong Kong, Yemen, South Africa and, most recently, East Timor.
 

Born in Derry's Bogside, Mr Bradley was appointed to the position of deputy electoral officer in his home city in 1973. Remembering those turbulent times, he recalls an episode when a 200lb bomb was placed in his office just when he and his staff attempted to count votes in a local school.
 

Things did not get easier when he was appointed chief electoral officer in1980, just in time to oversee the 1981 elections which led to hunger-striker Bobby Sands becoming an MP. "In the 1970s we had two monolithic blocks, unionists and nationalists, and there was evidence of clear electoral abuse on both sides, but it was based on a kind of understanding that it was tolerated as long as votes did not cross the political divide.

 "These days, we have both endemic, i.e. planned, electoral abuse and individual fraud - often in the shape of parents who think they know best how their children should vote. But both types are not half as widespread as people are led to believe."
 

Mr Bradley has repeatedly come under attack from various political parties. During the 1998 referendum, the DUP insisted on putting its own seals on polling boxes to prevent "tampering" by its opponents.
 

In 1997, the SDLP accused him of not doing enough to stop fraud in west Belfast where Sinn Féin had made dramatic gains at the SDLP's expense that year. Citing examples where seven adults were registered to vote in one bedsit in Divis Tower and 13 in one three-bedroom house, the SDLP claimed electoral fraud in west Belfast was "wholesale, barefaced and organised on a military basis". Sinn Féin's reply at the time was a laconic one. If it or any other party wanted to perpetrate electoral fraud "they'd do a better job than what's being pointed to", a local councillor and now MLA, Mr Alex Maskey, was quoted as saying. The chief electoral officer agrees in principle, saying there is no evidence of widespread and organised fraud and pointing to population movements as a possible reason for inaccurate electoral registers.
 

In Mr Bradley's mind, however, such anecdotes are easily offset by his experiences abroad. In South Africa, he saw an old woman waiting in the blazing sun for hours to cast her vote, determined not to leave the queue even though she was close to fainting. Eventually, she came out of the polling hut with a smile saying she could now die in peace.

While retiring from the chief electoral officer's post, Mr Bradley has no intention of retiring completely. His next assignment will take him to Kosovo. Asked about the main challenges facing his successor, Mr Denis Stanley, he points to the changed political climate in the North. "While at least we will be holdingelections in a peaceful situation now, the tooth-and-nail battles within various strands of unionism and nationalism could make for an interesting time."

 http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2000/0802/north2.htm  
 

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