Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. I beg to move the following amendment: after "report" insert

My reason for tabling the amendment is not in any way to detract from the original motion's purpose. However, I feared it would focus on only one aspect of the electoral process. If the Chief Electoral Officer is to be asked to report on the electoral process, he should report on the entire process.

I have also moved the amendment because, from my point of view, the purpose of an electoral process is to ensure that every individual who has the right to vote is enabled, facilitated and encouraged to vote. Electoral fraud needs to be addressed. Sinn Féin has nothing to fear from scrutiny of the electoral system or from its being made more efficient. If measures are introduced to modify the electoral system, time will tell how that affects Sinn Féin's share of the vote.

In moving the motion, Mr Hussey covered the other aspects of the electoral process, particularly registration. He said that the electoral register is vital. I agree that a complete electoral register is vital. If a person is not on the electoral register, that person will not have the right to vote on polling day.

I have experience of seeing people arrive at a polling station on the day of an election only to discover that they are not on the electoral register. Members have to consider votes quite often, but many ordinary people only think of the election on the day of an election.

They have not been registered for various reasons. Many people would claim that they never received forms through their doors. That may be because the electoral registration form is a small piece of paper and because many of our letter boxes are full of envelopes and junk mail, the electoral form is often mislaid. Occasionally people complete the forms but miss the collection; perhaps because no one called to collect them or because they could not find the forms when the collectors called. If people are not registered during the registration process in August and September, the vast majority of them will not appear on the register at all and will not be able to vote.

One suggestion is that, during the registration process, the Chief Electoral Officer should be given the finances and resources to mount a publicity campaign alerting the public that the registration process is ongoing and advising them of the documents required when casting a vote.

For one reason or another, many people who are registered to vote will turn up at a polling station without the required identification. Perhaps their driving licences or passports have expired, or perhaps they never had any. Their identification may have been mislaid or they might have left the documents somewhere else on the day. Many people do not think about an election until election day.

Age Concern and the Royal National Institute for the Blind made submissions to the House of Commons Select Committee on Home Affairs on electoral law and administration, pointing out the difficulties the elderly face when registering. That issue should be addressed. The elderly, because they are not knowledgeable about the registration process, are reluctant to fill in forms.

Suggestions have been made to the effect that more information should be required at registration stage so that some form of identification card can be produced for the purposes of voting. That would be useful if it led to a reduction in electoral fraud, if not to its prevention. However, if acquiring that form becomes a difficult and complicated process for people with poor sight, the elderly, or those with reading difficulties, they will not have open and easy access to registration.

Vocal and public allegations of election fraud have been made against Sinn Féin. As Mr Hussey stated, several reports have been compiled as a result of those allegations. In the Second Report of the House of Commons Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs 1998 on the electoral process, the Northern Ireland Office commented that there was a disappointing amount of evidence of vote stealing. It also stated that very little material had been submitted to the review carried out on electoral fraud.

I went to refer to some comments from the RUC in that report. It is not usual for me to depend on information supplied by the RUC.

Collusion.

Yes, collusion. The RUC said that there was evidence of abuses of the absent system of postal and proxy votes. The Chief Electoral Officer referred that abuse to the RUC, who examined a sample of votes and discovered that 20% of those absent votes that were suspected of being fraudulent were, in fact, genuine.

They made no attempt to quantify the extent of absent or proxy voting. More significantly, they did not reach any conclusion about any one party's being involved in electoral fraud through absent voting. I refer to other bodies that have contributed to reports on the electoral process and to their determination on which party or parties were involved in electoral fraud.

We all know that parties can appoint polling agents at a polling station to bring instances of personation to the attention of the electoral officers and to call on the RUC to make an arrest if that is appropriate. The RUC has said that there was very little evidence of polling agents informing the electoral officers to enable them to investigate - [Interruption].

Order.

If any Members wish to speak, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am sure that they have time to put their names down.

The RUC said that there was very little evidence of its being called upon to deal with personation. We have many vocal, public allegations of electoral fraud, but very little substance behind them, in spite of the reports and the reviews.

I want to discuss comments made by the Chief Electoral Officer in his submission in the report of the electoral review of 1998. He said that, while there were some indications of abuse of postal and proxy votes, he was provided with little evidence to enable him to investigate it. In particular, he said, his attention was drawn to a media report by the SDLP. The SDLP had stated that personation was widespread in the West Belfast constituency. However, despite repeated public assurances from the Chief Electoral Officer that he would initiate a full inquiry on the production of any evidence, he received nothing to substantiate the claims.

As I have said, we have many vocal, public allegations about electoral fraud and about who is responsible, but little of substance to provide evidence for a proper inquiry, investigation or prosecution.

Intimidation.

It would be very surprising if all those who have contributed to these reviews have been intimidated. Several academics were asked to examine the review of the electoral process in the North of Ireland, with particular regard to allegations of electoral fraud, and to give their findings. The academics agreed that both the SDLP and the UUP were most vocal in attacking Sinn Féin and in attributing its successes almost entirely to the abuse of the electoral system. David Trimble, in 'The Irish Times' and the 'Belfast Telegraph' on 24 May 1997 said that Sinn Féin had been guilty of massive electoral abuse. However, the academics who responded to the review suggested that the abuse that does occur is not confined to one party or to one half of the political and religious divide.

Prof Brendan O'Leary of the London School of Economics stated that, although he is doubtful that abuse occurs on a large scale, confidential interviews carried out by him with people from all parties - except the Alliance Party and the DUP, which I assume chose not to have a confidential interview - led him to the conclusion that abuse is perpetrated on behalf of all the parties.

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Progressive Unionist Party's name may well be absent from whatever report the Member is reading from, for we never, ever, spoke to Prof O'Leary on this subject.

Although I cannot confirm whether that is the case, I accept the Member's point. The name of the Member's party is not specifically referred to in the report. It does, however, refer to all parties with the exception of the Alliance Party and the DUP, and I was quoting from the document published by the Northern Ireland Office, but I accept the Member's clarification.

Furthermore, there is general agreement expressed by those academics, which includes others from the University of Ulster and Queen's University, Belfast, that the recent electoral successes of Sinn Féin - referring, in particular, to the elections of 1997 - are consistent with the political climate and our previous electoral performance.

Mr McNamee, I must ask you to draw your remarks to a close.

I will try to sum up, Madam Deputy Speaker. They also conclude that Nationalist voters had realised that strengthening Sinn Féin's electoral mandate was far more likely to deliver peace than prolong violence. The report went further: it said that Sinn Féin's adroit campaigning on bread-and-butter issues and the strength of our party organisation had been cited as ways in which Sinn Féin had legitimately consolidated its core vote. Those are the views of the academics that contributed to the review of electoral fraud in the North following allegations, which were not substantiated and for which no evidence was provided, and the view was formed independently. Indeed, they concluded by saying that it raised the question of whether there were any ceiling to the rise in Sinn Féin's vote. I ask the Assembly to support the amendment to the motion in order that the Chief Electoral Officer will be required to give a report on the entire process, not only to deal with the question of electoral fraud, if and when it occurs, but also to facilitate and encourage everyone who has the right to vote to do so. Go raibh maith agat.

Given the large number of Members who have asked to speak in this debate and the time allocated for it, I must ask Members to limit their contributions to less than five minutes. I will give notice 10 seconds before the five-minute point.

Recently, a friend of mine from County Antrim told me that his great-great-great-grandfather was a sheep stealer. However, he admitted to me that there is one thing that is much worse than sheep stealing, and that is vote stealing.

I congratulate Mr Hussey for bringing this motion before the Assembly. He mentioned 1997, but this problem has been around for much longer than that. This is not meant as criticism - it is merely a fact - but it is only in recent years that the main Unionist parties have been concerned about this problem, and for very obvious reasons. However, it has been around for a long time.

I first came into this Chamber in 1975 - that is over 25 years ago - and certainly for 20 of those 25 years, I felt that I was not quite John the Baptist, but a lone voice in this fight against electoral fraud. If you go back to 1977, 1978 or 1979, before the birth of the present Sinn Féin party, electoral fraud was taking place then. I can well recall that people came down the roads in cars; they came on bicycles; they even came in prams - well, perhaps not prams - but they came in all sorts of vehicles. They were almost like the Scarlet Pimpernel - here, there and everywhere. There was nothing anyone could do about it. People were changing skirts and trousers and putting on wigs outside. It was on a big scale.

That said, although it was very obvious that it was being done, it was not done on a professional scale. Years later, of course, it became very professional, and in recent years it has been so.

I move on to the question of identification, medical cards, social security cards, passports and so on. The medical card identification is a sick joke. Can you imagine trying to get a loan or social security benefit by showing your medical card as proof of identity?

When Tom King was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, my colleague John Hume and I went to see him. We presented direct evidence of electoral fraud. Mr McNamee talked about evidence - forged medical cards were produced. I produced them myself. Medical cards are something that I do know something about. Unless you were familiar with them, you would not recognise them as being forged. My party has raised the issue with every Secretary of State since then - Jim Prior, Paddy Mayhew, Mo Mowlam.

In case anyone thinks that this is sour grapes on my part, it did not, in any way, affect my electoral fortunes at the House of Commons. I stood for the West Belfast seat in Westminster four times, and was elected at the third attempt. Electoral fraud can affect candidates at Assembly level and, perhaps more importantly, at local government level. It takes only a few hundred votes either way to change a result.

A colleague of mine put down a motion in the House of Commons relating to the Chief Electoral Officer. The problem was that there was not a Minister to reply - well, a Minister did reply, but he made it clear that he did not have the authority to do so. The reason given was that the Chief Electoral Officer answered to Parliament.

However, Secretaries of State do have certain powers. Unfortunately, in recent years they have been slow to use them. Young people have boasted of voting 25 and 30 times. It was an easy thing to do. Medical cards were handed out in tally-rooms, and they were easy to produce. The doctor's name was stamped on it. Every doctor has his own code number, and even that could be stamped on the card. All that had to be done was to ring the Central Services Agency and ask for the doctor's list for a particular area, and it would be given to you along with the code numbers.

I am aware of the time factor. Let me just say that identification is a sick joke that has been raised many times. Some sort of card that has a photograph on it, for example, a smart card that has the latest computer technology, is the only way that the public in Northern Ireland can have confidence in the voting system.

I listened with interest to Mr Hussey, and I congratulate him on bringing this matter before the House, as he did before the Forum.

I also listened - and I could not believe what I was hearing - to the brass neck and brazen gall of Sinn Féin. According to them, there is no problem. They even quoted the Royal Ulster Constabulary as their source of information on the lack of fraud in the voting process, yet they know full well that not only does it go on, but it goes on in a very clearly systematic and professional way.

Go to Ardboe at election time. They can be seen taking the medical cards out of the boot of the car and handing them to people. It is done openly, because they have nothing to fear.

They say that no one has come forward to substantiate those claims. However, that may just have something to do with a person calling with a gun at night or with a hood over his head, to tell you that if you make that complaint you will get kneecapped or you may get shot. That would not alarm some Members on the opposite side of the House because it would be second nature to them, considering the political ideology of their party. Let us make no mistake about it; this has been going on, and it is a very serious matter. Some may regard it as something to laugh about, but vote-stealing is not a joke; robbing people of their right to register their vote is not a joke. Many people have gone to polling stations only to find that their votes were already taken.

I can understand people saying that, in a Westminster election, it may not always mean the difference between being elected and not being elected. However, the first time I was elected in Mid Ulster, I won by a majority of 78 votes. That was the figure declared. However, if you take into account the fraudulent votes of the next person in line that majority could have been 2078.

Sinn Féin/IRA are the political masters of vote-stealing. They do it without any embarrassment, yet they know it is true. In local government, 0·5% of the vote can take a seat away from a person - 0·2% of the vote has taken seats away from people. This issue really does matter, and we are looking at a situation in local government, and in Assembly elections, which has relevance.

Who would want to hold a seat, knowing that they had won it fraudulently? Only a person with a background of terrorism would try to defend such a situation or want to hold a seat won in such a way. No one with any morality or credibility would want to be in that position.

The British Government must take some responsibility because there was the Forum report. Mo Mowlam promised that action would be taken. She said that she could not take action in time for the Assembly elections but that it would be taken before the next Westminster election and before the local government election.

However, Mo Mowlam has gone; Mandelson has gone; another Secretary of State has come, and still, no action has been taken to stop those who are robbing people of their right to vote. In west Belfast, we found that six people were claiming to be tenants of a one-bedroomed flat. When investigations were complete, there was no one there, despite the fact that six people were registered to vote.

That shows the brass neck of a political party that calls itself democratic. It is a stranger to democracy; it has robbed seats from the SDLP and others, and that is not the way that a democratic system should proceed. The motion demands that action be taken, and that a democracy should be allowed to decide who is elected to Westminster, the Assembly and councils.

I regret that the debate is necessary. I was the chairperson for the Forum committee on electoral fraud. That committee took representations from a broad cross-section of society in Northern Ireland and it was clear that electoral fraud was very widespread.

Despite the Forum report, and that from the Select Committee at Westminster, Governments have not responded to the Northern Ireland political parties' concerns about electoral fraud. There is nothing more despicable in a democracy than vote-stealing. People have laid down their lives in order that others could have the right to vote and there is nothing more precious than that right in a democratic society.

I am now more than ever convinced of the principle of "no vote, no photo; no photo, no vote", particularly considering the proceedings of the Forum committee. It is clear that the documentation used in the past for identification has been abused - none more so than medical cards.

I am also concerned about the whole question of postal and proxy votes. These have been widely abused, particularly in the west of the Province. When I look at some of the constituencies in the west of the Province and compare them with those in the east, I notice a marked difference, which is not down to the weather or the climate. There is something radically wrong when there is such a difference in the applications for postal votes.

Will the Member give way?

No, I do not have enough time.

I was very struck by the evidence given by the former Chief Electoral Officer, Mr Bradley, to the Select Committee. He said that when he looked at the applications for postal votes, two thirds of them were marked red - they were discounted and disqualified. That clearly shows the enormity of the abuse of the postal vote system. Rather than having these votes checked centrally, I ask the Government to consider having them checked at local level, where people know the individuals making the applications. Photographic identification should be produced before a ballot paper is handed over.

Several important elements must be considered with regard to registration. It should be necessary for people to provide their signatures - they should be made available to the presiding officer in a polling station. There is also a need to make the polling stations user-friendly, particularly for those with disabilities. That was one major issue that came before the committee in the Forum.

The amendment does not add or take away from the original motion. The important thing is that Government grasp this major problem. As Dr Hendron said, it is nothing new. We know the old adage "Vote early, vote often". Northern Ireland is the only place where the dead walk the streets on election day. These abuses must come to an end if we are to create a society in which it is politics that dominates. This debate has come at a worthwhile time - regrettably too late for the two forthcoming elections - and I congratulate Mr Hussey for raising the issue.

On a point of order, a LeasCheann Comhairle. Is it in order for a Member to slate a whole society of people west of the Bann by implying that they engage in massive electoral fraud?

That is not a point of order. I call Mr Ervine.

Yesterday some Members suggested that we spend too long in plenary session. We are now told that we have five minutes to deal with an issue of great significance. This seems ridiculous to me. That is not your fault, Madam Deputy Speaker, but it is something that the Business Committee must give some serious consideration to.

I know that Sinn Féin has never been involved in electoral fraud because Mitchell McLaughlin said so - much as he said he does not know any IRA men in Derry. Of course it has been involved in electoral fraud, but it has not been alone. The Ulster Unionist Party used to make it its forte many years ago. For those who do not want to believe that, let us look at one possibility. If a councillor would take key money off a tenant, would he take a vote off someone it did not belong to? Of course he would.

There has been corruption in the system for years and years. That is why we will be supporting the amendment. It adds to the dealing with electoral fraud, the dealing with the patheticism of having people tell you the difficulties they have when they go to get their vote. They find that are not registered, and they cannot understand why.

It also deals with the methodology of identification. I have watched people arrive with "sea" books - which are very definitive and have photographs - and being refused their vote. Benefit books, which have no means of identifying their owners, are acceptable. It might be somebody else's benefit book. It might be somebody else's medical card. We have trundled on through the years with this pathetic system. Every now and again, we jump up and shout about it. Of course, that happens about two or three months before an election.

What is wrong with teaching children at 15, 16, 17, or perhaps when they are about to leave school, what they can expect in the electoral system and how they can become part of the electoral system? Have we thought of doing that? I do not think so. Have we thought of having outreach to the elderly or the infirm? Have we thought about the value of the vote? We hear plenty of lip-service paid to the value of the vote. However, its value is measured by the cost of running an election.

If, of course, you do not believe that the protection of democracy is worth spending the money on, then we should not be having this debate. Something definitive needs to be done that deals not only with fraud but also with getting people easily and properly registered.

Indeed, we may have to go as far as introducing a system such as the one in Australia, where it is against the law not to vote. Many Western democracies find themselves electing people with a minority of the population voting; people who lecture about the political efficacy they have because they have the majority of a minority.

If we are genuine about refining our democracy, about refining how the population elects its representatives, then let us not play games with it. There should be some form of electronic mechanism and an abandonment of those things that are not definitive to the person.

There should be some formula or system in place - and paid for - which ensures that all votes are properly regulated. For too long we have heard the complaints. If the Shinners were to admit at all that they were involved in electoral fraud they might tell you that what they simply did was rehash and revamp an old system. It is true. The system is ripe for abuse. Therefore, tragically, there will be those who see a prize big enough that they will abuse it.

I support the amendment. However, it should not detract from the wisdom of the Member who moved the motion.

I welcome the opportunity to debate this motion. As a representative of Fermanagh and South Tyrone - a constituency that must be in the Guinness Book of Records as having the greatest number of elections of any UK constituency - I know all about the abuse of the electoral system.

In the days before identification methods, we had buses stopping outside polling stations, people being handed slips of paper and directed to vote. We had large caravans filled with items of clothing, wigs, shoes, spectacles, all to facilitate voting fraud. We even had "rent-a-child" with a baby being pushed around giving an impostor the air of legitimacy.

With the introduction of identification methods, we hoped that this blatant fraud would end, but it did not. There has been review after review, but nothing has been done.

The previous Chief Electoral Officer gave evidence in Westminster on his concerns about electoral fraud. He stated that the amount of organised personation that he saw was so great that he went to the Secretary of State. The Chief Electoral Officer realised that identification documents were needed, but was unable to influence those who saw no need to take drastic action.

Eventually, in 1997, a review was instigated by the Secretary of State of the time, Mo Mowlam. The review concluded with the launch of the 'Vote Early, Vote Fairly' document. That document contained many recommendations that could have increased the public's confidence in the electoral process. After three years, it has still not been implemented. The present Chief Electoral Officer is in a prime position to tell us whether any changes have been implemented and what information can be brought into the public domain.

The main recommendation in the Mowlam report was that voters should have an identity card. I would welcome the introduction of such a card as a positive move to reduce personation at elections. Members have already mentioned medical cards and allowance books; the use of those documents should end immediately, for they are poor means of identification. There are abundant accounts of young people allegedly claiming a vote with a pension book.

In its submission to the Mowlam review, Sinn Féin advocated the removal of all identification documents. That would be a ludicrous state of affairs, once again leaving the system open to abuse - back to busing and caravans full of clothing. There is also serious concern about malpractice in postal voting, which deserves attention. One of the recommendations in the Mowlam report was the placing of watermarks on forms; perhaps that would be a positive step.

The present system is still open to abuse. We can have no confidence that our votes will not be rendered void by electoral malpractice. This is a reserved matter, and I hope that the Prime Minister will take our debate today on board. Perhaps he will implement some change - not for this election, perhaps, but soon. We cannot continue to put things on the long finger and do nothing.

I thank Mr Hussey for bringing the motion to the Assembly, although I should also state that there is nothing in the amendment that I oppose.

I oppose electoral abuse, whether it be vote-stealing or building up a party's strength by any other kind of electoral fraud. My concerns were such that I made them known to the Government about 12 months ago. I received a written reply from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Mr George Howarth MP. He stated:

He qualified that by adding,

He also said:

I also referred to the use of medical cards for identification purposes. Mr Howarth said:

He concluded:

I agree with Mr Hussey that the Government have trailed their feet and have been very slow.

I want to put on record my condemnation of a practice that has been brought to my attention. It is one which, I regret to say, I am unable to do anything about, and so far it has not been touched on in today's debate. After the Assembly elections, my attention was drawn to the practice of intimidatory gangs following postmen on the morning that the postal votes were being delivered and moving in immediately to confiscate them. They confiscated the unopened package from the recipient to use for their own political gain. That is all the more annoying when often the recipient did not apply for the vote in the first place and was not even aware of it until it had arrived and was taken from him or her 10 seconds later.

That practice is mainly inflicted on the most vulnerable people in society, namely the elderly and those living alone. I appeal to the family members of those who apply for a postal or proxy vote to make an effort to be present when the postal vote is being delivered, because their presence just might deter those paramilitary-type groups from stealing those votes.

I said earlier that I regretted that I was unable to do anything about that activity because the victims are terrified of the intruders and are afraid of retaliation if they pursue the matter or have it pursued on their behalf. I hope that a system will be devised to do away with this most cowardly of all electoral abuse practices. I thank Mr Hussey for bringing the motion forward.

During the course of the Northern Ireland Forum for Political Dialogue debate on this subject, my party tabled an amendment and we welded the two together and had an agreed motion. This was followed by lengthy sessions when a committee scrutinised the matter and prepared a report which went to the then Secretary of State.

As a member of the Northern Ireland Select Committee, I brought this issue to the attention of the Committee, and it too heard evidence sessions and issued a report. Once again a report was submitted to the Secretary of State. During the period when Marjorie Mowlam was Secretary of State, there was, perhaps deliberately, an attempt to long-finger this issue.

I detected greater urgency during Peter Mandelson's time as Secretary of State, and, indeed, I am sure other political parties had meetings with the under-Secretary of State, George Howarth, on this subject and are aware of the nature of the proposals that he is considering introducing. Those will be welcome in dealing - much more effectively than the existing regulations and legislation do - with those who deliberately, and in an organised way, seek to subvert the democratic process.

This is a significant matter. It is not about somebody playfully stealing a vote or two; it is not about somebody getting one over on the presiding officer in a polling station or about voting for poor Johnny, who is unable to go out himself because he is ill or away on business elsewhere. It is about the organised and almost military use of an organisation to ensure that the outcome of an election is subverted, and they have succeeded in doing that on a number of occasions in local government by-elections.

I believe, without the slightest doubt, that the Mid Ulster Westminster seat was won by the present non-oath-taking Member for that area from my Colleague. The Electoral Office showed us the number of fraudulent postal votes that went through in that area, and it was greater than the majority that Mr McGuinness had over my Colleague.

When a television profile was done of one of Mr McGuinness's close confidants at that time - who has since fallen out with him - it was interesting to hear him admit the extent of the electoral abuse that took place in that constituency; one woman voted over 30 times during that election. We are told that there is no evidence - evidence such as the BBC's 'Spotlight' programme was able to produce of six people claiming to be tenants in a one-bedroom flat - six people in a one-bedroom flat.

Five people were registered as being resident in another one-bedroom flat, and they could not be traced. Six people were registered as sharing yet another one-bedroom flat, but three of them could not be found. Two of five people registered in another flat were also registered at another address in the same constituency and at two other addresses in a different constituency. According to that evidence, the SDLP challenged 200 entries on the West Belfast register, with the result that 102 names were removed.

Attempts at electoral fraud were clearly made in that constituency, and there are countless examples of it. There is evidence that some people were engaged in the printing and writing of names on medical cards. The police raided their centre, but those involved burned the remnants of the medical cards in the fireplace as they tried to hold the police off. A great deal of evidence has been gathered on that sort of activity over the years.

Many people have approached Members about electoral fraud because they are afraid to come out publicly and give evidence on it. They know that the fellow travellers and henchmen of Sinn Féin/IRA would do great damage to them if they gave evidence. Members need not get carried away with the nonsense that there was very little evidence that electoral fraud took place. There was plenty of evidence, and everybody knew that in their hearts. The intelligent view of the Electoral Office was that this was only the tip of the iceberg and much more was happening about which people did not have the full details.

Mr Robinson, your time is up.

This is a major issue that must be dealt with. The sooner it is tackled, the sooner there will be fair elections in Northern Ireland, with the people who win elections ending up in the elected Chamber rather than those who steal the people's votes.

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. I support the amendment and trust that the efficiency of the registration and balloting processes will benefit from the debate. It is high time that the veil of secrecy surrounding the electoral process was lifted. Why should Members be furtive about information?

Most Members would welcome the proposal if Mr Hussey, who moved the motion, was sincere and was seeking a change in the electoral system that would make it more open and accountable. However, I suspect that the motion is another attempt by Unionists to engage in the usual Sinn Féin-bashing. It has almost become custom and practice in the Assembly for both Unionist groups to use motions for no purpose other than to attack Sinn Féin, and I am sure that they have dug deep for this one. However, as my Colleague Mr McNamee has stated, the evidence to sustain allegations of electoral fraud is very thin despite Unionists' continuing assertions.

Given its history, the Ulster Unionist Party should be the last party to raise the issue of electoral fraud. However, I welcome its new-found conversion to the democratic process of openness, equality and the principle of one vote per person. Electoral malpractice or the culture of electoral fraud was patented by the Ulster Unionist Party and copied by others long before Sinn Féin ever became involved in contemporary electoral politics.

The most undemocratic electoral fraud ever perpetrated on any people or nation was inflicted on the people of Ireland by the refusal of Unionists and the British to recognise the democratic mandate given by the people to Sinn Féin in the 1918 General Election. That fraud has since been reinforced by the partition of this island under a threat of violence and war. [Interruption].

Order.

Every election conducted under the Unionist regime since the inception of the state was an exercise in electoral fraud. Election day in Unionist- speak was known as "resurrection day" - that was the day when even the dead voted. Derek Hussey speaks of no recourse to other means. Not content with the votes registered by the dear departed, the Unionist regime at Stormont passed laws that restricted voting rights to property owners or tenants with statutory rights. Such restrictions meant that Catholics were disenfranchised, while those registered as multiple property owners had multiple votes.

In addition, to ensure that the Unionists would retain power there was the additional security - [Interruption].

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