Picture ¨Peter Lilley, MP, www.thetimes.co.uk
Tory MP Peter Lilley’s company IDOX was given contracts across Scotland by SNP and Labour councils to quietly privatise the entire electoral process and control of postal votes and election counts across Scotland.
The contracts were awarded to ensure private control of all Scottish elections for the three year period covering the EU election, the general election, the EU referendum and the Scottish Elections which allow IDOX to control, open, count and put forward "postal" ballot papers to be put into ballot boxes right up to the 10pm deadline.
By May 2013 IDOX boasted they already had control of elections and voter registration and votes for 13 million people across the UK in the privatisation of all elections that most voters in the UK are completely unaware of.
Does this mean it is possible for postal votes to be binned (if private operators don't agree with the vote provided) and replaced using signatures they store electronically and can ballot papers be made up in peoples' names right up to the 10pm deadline using the information held in the IDOX database -based on lists that tell you who did not vote in previous elections and election voting history held by IDOX for what appears to be moving fast for all of the UK?
Is this why leader of the Scottish Tory party, Ruth Davidson, declared she knew the postal vote results before the election count started?
In May 2015 an article "IDOX Elections Delivering Modern Democracy" said "Despite concerns over abuse of the system and fraud, the Electoral Commission maintains that there is no evidence of widespread and systematic abuse, and that it would not be ‘proportionate’ to scrap postal voting"
Despite a police investigation into allegations of postal vote tampering in the Scottish referendum, the police did not hand over their report to prosecutors until September 2015, ensuring the General Election was allowed to go ahead under IDOX control
On 16th September 2015 the Scotsman reported the police had handed over their report related to their inquiry into how Ruth Davidson and others knew the postal vote result before the votes had been counted revealing, "A Crown Office spokesperson said: “The Crown Office has received information regarding the investigation carried out by Police Scotland and will consider if further action is necessary."
Just two weeks later, on the 30th September 2015, the Daily Record reported "No-one will face prosecution over allegations that electoral secrecy laws were broken by pro-union campaigners counting postal votes ahead of last year’s independence referendum . The Crown Office has confirmed that the issue is “now closed”
At the general election half an hour before polls closed I was told that 20% of the votes were “postal votes” for my polling station – my initial reaction there is no way 20% of people voted by post – so how come the number is so high”
The article "IDOX Elections Delivering Modern Democracy" gives an explanation of how the new "modern privatisation of the electoral process" worked at the general election.
"Countdown to the election
For those of us new to the Elections team, work started the week beginning 27 April, almost two weeks before polling day. From the Monday, we started to arrive on-site to set up the system and meet the temporary staff employed to open and scan the PVS and ballot papers. The scale of this operation varied from one local authority to another: some of the smaller ones had 8,000 voting packs to get through before election day whereas sites like Glasgow (with an anticipated 66,000 packs) would sometimes process more than that in one day.Polling day.
On the actual day of the election, work in Glasgow began at 6pm. This was due to the fact that postal votes can legally be handed into polling stations until 10pm – we had a long night of verifying votes ahead of us. In Glasgow, we had moved from the council building to the Emirates Arena for the count, where our work continued as media outlets from across the country prepared to report the events of the night ahead.
Of course, we didn’t let the pressure get to us and the last of the postal votes were safely delivered to the council to go forward to the overall count around midnight. While the days were sometimes long, I thoroughly enjoyed my ‘sabbatical’ from the Idox Information Service team and the chance to be involved in the delivery of something as important as democracy: roll on the Scottish Parliament elections in 2016! By Stacey Dingwall, Idox"
In a news article on their website using the graphic “Every vote counts” Idox
boast they “provide "electoral services" for Aberdeen City Council, Aberdeenshire Council, Birmingham City Council, Fife Council, Moray Council, Perth & Kinross Council, Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park, South Lanarkshire Council, Glasgow City Council, The City of Edinburgh Council and and provided internet voting site to elect staff members for the Council of Europe and a range of technical services to support the delivery Norwegian local elections on 15th September 2015.
"The range of managed election services delivered by Idox includes: managed print services, postal vote managed services, e-counting and electronic voting as well as the project management and supervision required to deliver success in conjunction with the council’s own workforce"
As a leading supplier of electoral services, Idox understands and actively engages with the issues and challenges that electoral administrators face and specialises in designing and delivering a wide range of innovative and cost effective solutions.
The “Idox Elections” website shows the extent of Peter Lilley’s control (using contracts and taxpayers money to put him in charge and profit from of all elections rather than the democratic bodies meant to control all elections to ensure no private company or political party anywhere can corrupt the vote.
Idox claim “Idox Elections specialises in designing and delivering a range of innovative, cost effective solutions to meet the changing needs of the UK and international electoral services market. Our range of products and
associated services include traditional electoral registration and election management solutions as well as advanced Individual Electoral Registration, e-counting and electronic voting by internet and telephone.
Idox Elections aims to provide the choice, convenience and simplicity necessary to improve participation and confidence in voting whilst achieving modernisation and advancement of the democratic process”
The advancement being there is no democracy as IDOX with a Tory MP on the board control the entire electoral process.
And now they control the electoral process – is that why hundreds of thousands of people across Britain have been kicked off the voters roll across Britain by the Tory party as they now control the entire electoral register via IDOX who can use “personal identifier matching” to decide exactly who gets kicked off the register (thanks to Labour and SNP they decide who gets kicked off Scotland’s too).
Three SNP controlled councils, Angus, Dundee City and Perth and Kinross created a “Tayside procurement consortium” and used that to club together to pay Tory MP Peter Lilley's IDOX to take over the electoral process for 3 years – the period that covered the Scottish referendum, the EU elections, General Election, the Scottish elections and now the ~EU referendum with Idox even boasting on their website their “experts” include former Electoral Registration Officers”
Their Idox Elections website states "Idox's Public Sector Software division serves over 90% of local authorities through supplying leading applications for core functions relating to land, property and people."
They boast “Idox is also the largest provider of electoral management systems in the UK, Idox Elections covers a voting population of 13 million. Idox Elections' team of experts include former Electoral Registration Officers who advise the UK's central government on initiatives such as the Individual Electoral Registration. Idox Elections' wide-range of electoral management solutions include: electoral administration managed print services Postal Vote Managed Services e-Counting and e-Voting hosted solutions”
Their Idox Elections glossy brochure gives a graphic which details the new private control IDOX electoral process across Scotland England and Wales.
The brochure states "Idox “Self Click” allows electoral registration officers “to compare 100% of signatures and dates of birth on returned postal vote statements with stored masters”
They go on to claim their SelCheck reduces “manual input” and the Idox “Postal Vote Management Solution” scans and matches all postal ballot papers and accompanying Postal Vote Statements, to ensure that only authentic votes are put forward.”
They off to supply project management and support personnel and equipment and hardware for the councils that want to “outsource” control of the election for Tory MP Peter Lilley to profit from the private control of the entire electoral process across the UK where he employs the Electoral Regisration Officers now and they advise government.
So how is much is Peter LIlley being paid using the budgets of Scottish Local councils from taxes paid by austerity laden Scots (and Welsh and English council tax payers across England and Wales - as well as raking in money for Police and Crime Commissioner "elections" and no doubt the Mayor "elections too"'
On February 2014 IDOX revealed that Rt. Hon. Peter Lilley MP, Non-Executive Director of Idox, transferred 66,150 Idox ordinary shares from a personal holding into his SIPP at nil consideration (the "Transfer"). – a SIPP “is a pension ‘wrapper’ that holds investments until you retire and start to draw a retirement income.
By October 2015 his personal holding was stated to be 533,000 ordinary shares.
A SIPP is a type of personal pension and works in a similar way to a standard personal pension. The main difference is that with a SIPP, you have more flexibility with the investments you can choose”.
As Peter Lilley can use a SIPP pension to get his pension at 55 - while telling us we cannot ours until we are 72 and he benefits from one of the widest investment ranges permitted under HMRC rules with early retirement irrespective of whether they remain at work, subject to a minimum age of 55 - Penalty free transfers - Staggered or phased retirement - Inheritance tax planning possibilities - Significant tax advantages
As well as getting his MP's salary IDOX pays Peter Lilley £2083 for 8 hours work a month. He also is (and has been) on the board of various tax haven companies.
(equates to a salary of £541,580 a year if he worked full time at £2083 a day - with all those shares going into his SIPP pension to let him avoid paying tax now and cash in later.
Peter Lilley profiteering monthly and filling his pension wrapper with IDOX shares as an investment until he retires on the profits of the very quiet privatisation of control of the electoral process and all elections in the UK.