Tellers have a record of who doesn’t vote, and this is used to bring people to the polling station late in the evening and present as you.
The Electoral Commission has found no evidence of the information gathered by tellers being used to conduct voter fraud.
A Facebook post claims that tellers (supporters of political candidates who collect information outside polling stations) are actually involved in voter fraud.
The post says: “This is how they cheat. Parties have a copy of the electoral register with your name, voter number and address. They know who is a postal voter and who can vote in person. When they ask you for your number as you arrive at the polling station, they tick you off.
“These rotten cheats have been doing this for years and have a record of who usually doesn't turn up to vote. Bring on the useful idiots who turn up at the polling station late in the evening and present as you! Word has it they can do multiple polling stations.”
Full Fact contacted the Electoral Commission to ask if it had any evidence that tellers were engaged in voter fraud.
It told us: “We publish information about proven cases of fraud that have resulted in a conviction or police caution, and have not identified any such cases that involved the use of information gathered by tellers. The evidence from police investigations does not suggest it is a widespread issue.”
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Tellers are volunteers for election candidates who stand outside polling places and record the electoral number of people who have voted, which allows them to identify people who haven’t voted.
This information can be passed to candidates or their supporters, who can then use it to contact people to encourage them to vote.
There’s no evidence that the information collected by tellers is passed on to enable people to vote as another person.
Tellers must adhere to rules set out by the Electoral Commission, and you don’t have to give a teller your electoral number if you don’t want to.
The Electoral Commission says the UK has “low levels” of proven voter fraud, and has identified no evidence of large-scale electoral fraud in recent local and general elections.
In the most recent 2021 local and devolved government elections, the Electoral Commission reports 315 cases of alleged electoral fraud were investigated by the police, leading to zero convictions and two cautions, which were issued to a woman and her father after the former used her mother’s polling card to try to vote.
Just over half of alleged fraud cases involved “campaigning” offences, which were mostly about campaigners not including details about the printer, promoter or publisher on election material or someone making false statements about the personal character or conduct of a candidate.
Voting offences accounted for 25% of allegations.
In the 2019 general election, 595 cases of alleged electoral fraud were investigated by the police, 24% of which involved alleged voting offences. In total, four cases resulted in a conviction, with a further two leading to a police caution.
Of the six cases that led to a conviction or caution, two involved a voter using someone else’s vote. In both cases the voter was related to the person whose vote they attempted to use.
Image courtesy of secretlondon123
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the Electoral Commission has found no evidence of the information gathered by tellers being used to conduct voter fraud.
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