Fair elections

SIR – You suggest in your leader (July 19) that the best way to punish election cheats is to send them to prison.

This may be so, but proving electoral fraud would be difficult, and many perpetrators would escape both discovery and punishment – by which time election results could have been skewed, and constituents in some areas effectively disfranchised.

It surely cannot be beyond the wit of the Government to prevent electoral fraud in the first place.

Voters should have to prove their identity and home address, with photographic evidence such as a passport, driving licence or bus pass. As you also suggest, they should only be allowed one place of registration. Patricia Mowat

Camberley, Surrey