Birmingham City Council has admitted that staff witnessed attempts at illegal family voting during May’s local elections and were subjected to “aggressive abuse” from voters when they intervened to stop the practice — a disclosure that has reignited debate over electoral integrity in parts of Britain.
The admission came in response to a Freedom of Information request, with the council confirming that officials were forced to step in and separate groups of voters attempting to enter polling booths together. In a statement to the Daily Mail, the council said: “A number reported that families tried to go into the booths together, but when they were told not to — they went into the booths separately and voted independently. The staff were occasionally verbally abused by electors about this — but they on the whole complied once they realised it was a requirement. In some instances, the elector required assistance, which was provided.”
The council added that the account was corroborated by an Electoral Commission observer, who reported that “where more than one person tried to go into a polling booth, the Presiding Officer prevented this from happening, and was, on at least one occasion in their presence, subjected to aggressive behaviour as a result.”
Reform UK said the admission “confirms what many people already knew” about the prevalence of the practice. A party spokesman told the Mail: “If this is what is happening inside polling stations, just imagine the potential for coercion with postal votes behind closed doors. The authorities can no longer turn a blind eye to these practices. If action isn’t taken now, then we will ensure it is after the next general election.”
The disclosure follows similar concerns raised after February’s Gorton and Denton by-election, where Democracy Volunteers — an Electoral Commission-accredited observer group — reported “extremely high” levels of family voting across the constituency. Reform UK’s candidate Matt Goodwin lost that contest to Hannah Spencer of the Green Party. In the aftermath, Nigel Farage wrote to the Electoral Commission urging it to overhaul its guidance for polling station staff, which he said failed to address “cases of undue influence.” Farage said at the time that family voting was “rife in Britain’s Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities.”
Greater Manchester Police subsequently said they had found “no evidence” of illegal family voting during that by-election, concluding that a lack of suspect descriptions and limited CCTV left no reasonable lines of enquiry. Farage dismissed the finding as inadequate, saying: “Frankly, this is exactly the kind of establishment whitewash people are sick to death of. This isn’t good enough. We need proper oversight, real accountability and the courage to admit when something isn’t right, not another brushed-under-the-carpet report from the usual suspects.”
Ahead of May’s local elections, in which Reform UK made sweeping gains across the country, the Electoral Commission issued a specific warning that spouses who pressure their partners over how to vote could face prison. Niki Nixon, the Commission’s director of communications, said: “Anyone who tries to induce or compel someone to vote a particular way, or not to vote at all, is committing a serious crime that can result in a prison sentence.” She added: “Cases of reported fraud in the UK are very low, but we must not be complacent.”
