Postal vote boosts turnout

A move to postal voting helped boost turnout in the local elections - but other experiments, including electronic balloting, had little if any impact on polling levels.

Areas which abandoned the ballot box and forced people to vote by post generally saw big increases in turnout, which rose to 53 per cent in Stevenage compared with 29 per cent under the old system in 2000.

Havering, another all-postal council, saw turnout hit 46 per cent - well up on the London average. Overall, postal-balloting councils saw turnout rise by an impressive 28 per cent on 2000.

However, the exception was Hackney, where an over-complex postal system and the council's reputation for mismanagement saw the proportion voting hit only 33 per cent.

Electronic voting, where people made their choices on computer screens, saw an average increase of only five per cent in turnout over 2000, compared with a four per cent rise in areas which used traditional ballot-box methods. On-line voting over the internet was an even worse performer, boosting turnout by an average of one per cent.

Elderly voters were unimpressed in Newham, one of the areas pioneering electronic systems, in a project masterminded by the US polling gurus responsible for the "hanging chad" fiasco in Florida. Thomas Teighe, 80, went home after being confronted by a futuristic machine known as The Edge. He said: "I haven't got time to muck about. I'm an old man. There's a reason why people all over the world put an 'X' in the box - it's simple and it works. This is crackpot." Other methods of voting being pioneered in 29 authorities included text messaging by mobile phone in parts of Liverpool and Sheffield, as well as phoning in votes on a landline telephone.

Many councils allowed early voting before yesterday's official voting day and extended the hours polling stations were open. Ministers are now likely to encourage a wider take-up of postal voting, with some MPs urging the scrapping of ballot boxes altogether in favour of elections by mail. They are also expected to press ahead with internet and electronic voting, despite the failure to make big adavances in turnout using these methods.

There were also reports today that the Governments is considering backing moves making voting in general elections compulsory.