Family voting: the electoral fraud causing concern

Nigel Farage has called for police to patrol polling stations on election days to crack down on family voting.

It would be “very easy” to address the issue, said the Reform UK leader – councils and returning officers in polling stations must enforce “the very specific legislation” banning the practice, with police officers making sure “the law is being obeyed”.

What is family voting?

Family voting is where one person fills out or influences the ballot paper for other family members, instead of each voter making an independent choice. The male head of a household is commonly the family member who directs or completes the vote for others.

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This is different to Demeny voting, named after Hungarian demographer Paul Demeny, which is sometimes referred to as family voting. It is a form of proxy voting that allows parents or guardians to vote on behalf of their children.

Why is it controversial?

Electoral observers consider family voting a violation of democratic standards because it breaks the secret ballot principle, limits individual political freedom and often disproportionately affects women and younger voters.

When a husband enters a voting booth with his wife or children and marks their ballots for them or tells them exactly how to vote, even if they agree with the choice, the practice still breaks election rules, which usually require each person to vote privately.

In 2023, the United Kingdom passed the Ballot Secrecy Act, which made it an offence for a person to “accompany an elector into a polling booth; or position near an elector inside a polling station with the intention of influencing how they cast their vote”.

Being “coerced” by a relative to vote a particular way is “ugly” and “anathema to British values of open democracy and individual liberty”, said Khadija Khan in the Daily Mail. But Farage’s complaints are “all part of a well-practiced strategy of screaming foul whenever he is defeated in a democratic election”, said Byline Times.

Where does it happen?

Family voting has been documented by electoral observers in parts of Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Balkans, and some Middle Eastern and African countries.

Democracy Volunteers, a non-profit group of election observers, said it had witnessed 32 incidents of family voting in the Gorton and Denton by-election last week, in 15 of the 22 polling stations it observed. This was an “extremely high” number, it said.

But the organisation “did not provide any information about the people involved”, said Full Fact. In response, a spokesperson for the acting returning officer in the by-election said: “Polling station staff are trained to look out for any evidence of undue influence on voters. No such issues have been reported today.”

And when David Bull, chair of Reform UK, was asked by the BBC if alleged “unprecedented levels of illegal family voting” had changed the result in Gorton and Denton, he replied: “If I’m being candid, probably not”, said Byline Times.

Democracy Volunteers said that postal votes are being undermined by family voting. It recommended either allowing “advanced in-person voting to take place in some locations” or for home voting to be supervised, to avoid disenfranchising voters who cannot reach polling stations.