What Is Family Voting: Observers find 'high levels' of secret-ballot breaches in Gorton and Denton

Democracy Volunteers recorded 32 apparent instances of what is family voting during the Gorton and Denton parliamentary byelection, a monitoring team says, prompting alarm about the integrity of secret ballots at the polls. The findings matter now because the organisation’s observers sampled voting across 22 of the constituency’s 45 polling stations and calculated measurable effects on voter secrecy and turnout.

Democracy Volunteers deployment

Democracy Volunteers, founded by Dr John Ault and supported by Conservative peer and psephologist Prof Robert Haywood, deployed four accredited election observers across the Gorton and Denton constituency. The team attended 22 of the 45 polling stations while polls were open, working in pairs and spending between 30 and 45 minutes at each location. Across those visits they observed a sample of 545 voters casting ballots.

What Is Family Voting in Gorton and Denton

Observers were specifically watching for people appearing to collude on votes in breach of secret ballot rules, a practice commonly called family voting. In the 22 polling stations they monitored, observers recorded family voting in 15 locations and documented 32 separate cases, with nine of those cases concentrated in a single polling station. From the sample of 545 voters observed, 12% were either directed or affected by family voting. That equates to family voting being present in 68% of the stations sampled and affecting roughly one in eight voters in the observers’ sample.

Ballot Secrecy Act 2023 and signage

The enactment of the Ballot Secrecy Act in 2023 is cited as making family voting more clearly a breach of the secret ballot, but observers noted only limited on-site mitigation. Signage discouraging family voting was present in 45% of the polling stations observed, leaving more than half without visible warnings. The observers drew a direct line from the legal clarification to the assessment of observed behavior: the law defines the breach more clearly, and the absence of signage may have reduced voters’ awareness that such conduct is prohibited.

Manchester city council, ID checks and other polling-room incidents

Manchester city council stated its staff had been trained to look for evidence of voter interference and that no concerns were raised with council staff while polls were open. Observers also paid attention to the requirement for voters to show ID before being issued with a ballot paper. They recorded cases of voters being turned away, and said that in every observed instance this was because the person was not registered to vote in Westminster elections—for example, EU citizens who are eligible only in local elections. The volunteers also reported seeing voters taking photographs of their ballot papers. They noted one person being authorised to vote despite them already—unclear in the provided context.

Reactions from Labour, the Greens and Reform UK

Political parties responded rapidly to the observers’ data. Labour described the reports as "extremely worrying and concerning. " Anna Turley, the Labour party chair, told Newsnight that the party needs to see the evidence and the report before deciding what authorities should look into this. Zack Polanski, leader of the Green party, said he would back an investigation and stressed the importance of full transparency about the democratic process. Reform UK chair David Bull called electoral fraud "a stain on democracy" and said his party would support reporting issues and ensuring investigations are carried out in the spirit and fairness of the law.

Observers further placed the Gorton and Denton findings in comparative context. They noted that at a recent Westminster parliamentary byelection in Runcorn and Helsby, family voting was observed in 12% of polling stations and affected 1% of voters; by contrast, the Gorton and Denton observations registered family voting in 68% of the stations sampled and affected 12% of the voters observed. What makes this notable is the combination of higher station-level prevalence and the larger share of affected voters in the sample, which underpins calls for scrutiny and possible follow-up by electoral authorities.