The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
Labour faces legal action over alleged voter fraud
Ben Riley-Smith Political Editor
LABOUR is facing legal action from Angela Rayner’s former partner over alleged “voter fraud”.
Lawyers acting for Sam Tarry, the MP for Ilford South, have written to the party over claims that an online voting system has been used to disadvantage Left-wing candidates.
Mr Tarry claims that the Anonyvoter system was used to harm his unsuccessful attempt to be re-selected for the general election. Anonyvoter is software for holding online votes and is widely used by local branches of the Labour Party to decide who will be their candidate for the next election. Mr Tarry lost to Jas Athwal in a selection vote in October 2022 and has been disputing the result since. He is now considering issuing legal proceedings to force Labour to publish the Anonyvoter records from his selection or even to get an injunction to block Mr Athwal from being the official Ilford South candidate.
Trade unions are helping Mr Tarry raise tens of thousands of pounds, which will help fund legal action if an agreement with the party is not reached.
Meanwhile, a second Labour MP, Beth Winter who represents Cynon Valley, has been exchanging legal letters with the party over how Anonyvoter was used in her selection race.
Ms Winter sought to become the candidate in a newly-created Welsh seat last summer but lost. Her lawyers wrote to the party raising concerns about Anonyvoter before and after the result.
This week she has written to senior figures in Welsh Labour widening her complaint beyond online voting and demanding an investigation.
Vote breakdowns seen by this newspaper show that both candidates did better than their rivals among the voters who took part either in person or by post, but worse among those who cast their ballot on Anonyvoter. Such records are not made public.
Mr Tarry and Ms Winter are both members of the Socialist Campaign Group, the most prominent Left-wing group in the House of Commons which includes Jeremy Corbyn as a member.
Since becoming Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has widely been seen to have sidelined Left-wing figures as he seeks to make the party electable again after Mr Corbyn’s years in charge.
His party is now facing allegations that information generated by the Anonyvoter online system is at times being used to help get moderates selected as election candidates.
In one selection, a moderate candidate won just 10 per cent of the in-person vote but 62 per cent of the Anonyvoter online vote, according to a breakdown shared by local party figures.
There is no suggestion the Anonyvoter system is inherently flawed or faulty, but the lack of transparency has raised concerns that it is open to abuse.
Regional Labour figures running the online votes are able to see who has voted, a piece of information that would be critical to campaigns trying to turn out supporters in tight races.
Independent tellers are not usually given access to monitor the Anonyvoter system during the votes, meaning there is no outside oversight of the live online voting process.
The news comes as the Metropolitan Police this week confirmed its cyber team is investigating “computer misuse” in the selection of a Labour candidate in Croydon East after claims of voterigging.
It is understood Labour Party figures have disputed whether the two MPs have the evidence to back up their claims.
Critics have said their defeats could be the real motivation for the complaints.
A Labour spokesman said: “We have full confidence in the integrity of both selection processes and the use of Anonyvoter.”
The Anonyvoter website states that its software allows organisations to “conduct secret ballots remotely where voters want to be sure their votes are anonymous”.
Lawyers for MP have written to party claiming online system harmed his bid for re-election
The system works by inviting Labour members to take part in a vote via email. The vote runs for a set period of time. Who won how many votes is announced at the selection meeting.
One concern raised by Left-wing Labour figures is that, throughout the process, whoever is running the vote can see which members have voted and which have not.
Such information, if shared with a campaign team, could be significant. As selection votes often only involve a few hundred people voting and tight margins, they could use the information to attempt to engage their own supporters, potentially impacting the result.
Another concern is that the system allows for new members to be added while the vote is ongoing. It is understood that data showing when voters were added are not routinely handed over to candidates at the counts.
A third area of concern is that members who do not receive the email are able to generate a special code to vote which can be communicated to them over the phone if needed.
In theory, codes can be generated and even cast by those running the votes. Again, any data about how many codes have been generated and for whom are not routinely published.
At the heart of the concerns is a lack of observation of the online votes as they take place. Independent “tellers”, whose job involves observing a voting process to make sure it is run properly, are not usually given access into the system to monitor the vote. This is different for in-person votes, when members of a campaign’s team are often present, and postal votes, which are often counted on tables in front of campaign teams.
One Left-wing Labour source said: “It is a black box. There aren’t really checks and balances. There is an easy way of doing this which is independent tellers.”
To select candidates for a general election each local Labour branch decides whether to do in-person voting, postal voting, online voting with Anonyvoter or a combination of all three.
A breakdown of the results of the candidate selection vote is not published but is often read out at the count, meaning the records of those present must be relied on for the figures.
Mr Tarry, a former political officer at the TSSA trade union, has been the MP for Ilford South since 2019.
In late 2022 and early 2023 the law firm Carter Ruck, acting on behalf of Mr Tarry, exchanged letters with senior Labour Party figures requesting a formal appeal and seeking disclosure of the Anonyvoter data. A year on, the dispute has not been resolved.
A further letter was sent to Labour earlier this month, addressed to James Asser, the chairman of Labour’s National Executive Committee. David Evans, who as general secretary is Labour’s most senior official, was copied-in.
The lawyers noted that Mr Tarry had sought the disclosure of records generated by Anonyvoter about how each vote was cast, the date and time each ballot was issued, where new codes generated were sent and how those votes were cast.
Elsewhere, the letter said Mr Tarry had been “denied the opportunity to scrutinise the electronic voting record” despite the “obvious seriousness” of the concerns raised. It made clear information on how individuals voted was not wanted, only detail on time and method of the votes.
One complaint made in writing by Mr Tarry during the trigger ballot process in the summer of 2022 regarded a Labour member being alerted that they had voted via Anonyvoter to force a reselection.
However, the Labour member in question was abroad in Italy at the time and had not taken part in the vote.
It is understood the Labour Party investigated the claim at the time and accepted an error had occurred, but concluded it was an “isolated incident”.
The complaints by Ms Winter, the MP for Cynon Valley since 2019, regard a selection for a newly-created seat as part of the boundary review: Merthyr Tydfil and Upper Cynon.Ms Winter competed against Gerald Jones, the Labour MP for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney who was made shadow Scotland minister by Sir Keir last September.
Ms Winter won 56 per cent of the postal votes but 47 per cent of the Anonyvoter votes, according to a breakdown recorded by her team. There were no in-person votes. Mr Jones won 43 per cent of the postal votes (there was one abstention) but 53 per cent of the Anonyvoter votes, meaning he will be the candidate for the new seat. Before and after the June 2023 selection, Ms ‘We have full confidence in the integrity of the selection processes and the use of Anonyvoter’
Winter’s lawyers, Howe+Co, sent letters to senior figures in both the UK Labour Party and Welsh Labour raising concerns about the process.
A letter sent to Jo McIntyre, the general secretary of Welsh Labour, before the selection raised concerns about using online voting.
Ms Winter demanded a detailed breakdown of the Anonyvoter data, including how many codes allowing people to vote directly were generated.
The Welsh Labour Party declined to publish the detail Ms Winter requested, citing data protection rules. This week, Ms Winter raised new concerns in a letter she personally sent on Wednesday to Ms McIntyre and Vaughan Gething, the new Welsh Labour leader. The claims were not related to Anonyvoter, but the new letter underscores that she is continuing to dispute the selection.
Mr Jones and Welsh Labour were approached about Ms Winter’s claims but neither issued a comment.
Anonyvoter was also approached about claims that its software is being misused to benefit moderate candidates. The company did not issue a comment.
Momentum, the Left-wing activist group which championed Mr Corbyn’s leadership, called for an “immediate, comprehensive and independent investigation”.