What Is Family Voting: Allegations at the Gorton and Denton by-election
Nigel Farage has reported allegations of "family voting" at the Gorton and Denton by-election to Greater Manchester Police and the Electoral Commission, pushing for a full probe into independent observers' findings. The question what is family voting has been placed at the centre of post-vote scrutiny after Democracy Volunteers said it saw unusually large numbers of apparent breaches of the secret ballot.
What Is Family Voting: definition, law and how it was identified in Gorton and Denton
What Is Family Voting as used in the reports: the practice of a family member entering or accompanying someone into or near a polling booth and influencing their vote. The enactment of the Ballot Secrecy Act in 2023 makes that behaviour more clearly a breach of the secret ballot. Democracy Volunteers described the incidents it observed as "family voting" and said signage discouraging the practice was present in only 45% of the polling stations it looked at.
Democracy Volunteers’ deployment and the numbers they recorded
Democracy Volunteers, founded by Dr John Ault and supported by the Conservative peer and psephologist Prof Robert Haywood, deployed four accredited election observers across the constituency. The team attended 22 of the 45 polling stations while polls were open, working in pairs and spending between 30 and 45 minutes in each station.
In that sample the observers said they watched 545 voters cast ballots. They reported family voting in 15 of the 22 polling stations observed and recorded 32 cases in total, including nine cases in one polling station. Democracy Volunteers calculated that 12% of the voters they observed were either directed or affected by family voting and said these were the highest levels in its 10-year history of observing elections in the UK.
Who Democracy Volunteers are and the organisation's wider footprint
Democracy Volunteers describes itself as "a non-partisan, domestic election observation organisation committed to improving the security and accessibility of elections in the UK and abroad. " It is one of a number of election observer organisations accredited by the Electoral Commission. Observers are entitled by law to attend polling stations and vote counts, and accreditation requires applicants to state they will abide by a code of practice demanding political impartiality. The Electoral Commission carries out checks on political activity when processing accreditation and may revoke accreditation if impartiality is not maintained.
The organisation was involved in observing the 2024 general election and was present in 204 parliamentary constituencies and more than 1, 000 polling stations across the UK.
Responses from parties, police and the elections regulator
Nigel Farage urged the Electoral Commission to launch a full investigation and to work with police "with a view to prosecutions" and to "assess whether the extent of the irregularities is such that the validity of the election result may be called into question. " He said Reform UK had "reported the many cases of 'family voting' to the Electoral Commission and the police" and described what was seen as "deeply concerning, " saying it raised questions about the integrity of the democratic process in predominantly Muslim areas and warning about potential coercion with postal votes.
The Electoral Commission said it took the claims "very seriously" and would "carefully consider" the report. It added: "We are in close contact with the returning officer and Greater Manchester Police to speedily and carefully review the concerns that have been raised and all the information available. " Greater Manchester Police said: "We can confirm a report has been made. We are in the process of reviewing this report and will provide a further update in due course. "
Reform UK were beaten into second place by the Green Party by more than 4, 000 votes at the by-election. Farage called the outcome "a victory for sectarian voting and cheating. " A Green Party spokesman called the allegations "an attempt to undermine the democratic result and is straight out of the Trump playbook, " adding: "We've just won a historic by-election by a comfortable margin. We've shown the country that Greens can beat Reform, despite their big business donations. " The Reform UK chair, David Bull, said "electoral fraud is a stain on democracy" and that the party would support reporting issues "in the spirit and fairness with the law. " Labour described the reports as "extremely worrying and concerning, " and the Green party leader, Zack Polanski, said he would back an investigation. Separately, a comment in the wake of the result said that Starmer would fight on after the by-election defeat to the Greens.
Other procedural issues the observers logged
The observing team said they were also looking at the impact of the requirement for voters to show ID before they were issued with a ballot paper. Manchester city council said its staff had been trained to look for evidence of voter interference and that no concerns had been reported or raised with them while polls were open.
Volunteers recorded cases of voters being turned away; they said each case was because the person was not registered to vote in Westminster elections—for example, EU citizens who are eligible only to vote in local elections. They also reported seeing voters taking photographs of their ballot papers, and an incomplete incident in which one person was authorised to vote despite them already—unclear in the provided context.
Comparisons with other recent byelections
Democracy Volunteers compared its Gorton and Denton findings with a recent Westminster parliamentary byelection in Runcorn and Helsby, where it said family voting occurred in 12% of polling stations and affected 1% of voters. By contrast, Democracy Volunteers said family voting was observed in 68% of polling stations in Gorton and Denton, affecting 12% of the voters it observed.
