As I said in my entry of 5th January, I am concerned that someone is submitting thousands of entries for the Lea Hall / Garrets Green entry in the Proceeds of Crime Act vote in the Yardley Constituency – to the detriment of the Acocks Green entry, which would provide much needed funding for the Fox Hollies Community Association project at the Fox Hollies Forum. Currently the Lea Hall / Garrets Green project is winning decisively, despite the Acocks Green project having a very impressive 1,659 votes

I have now received the following response from the police, which confirms that the current running totals do not filter out multiple votes from one computer and that this will be done before the result is declared. The 1,000 votes all submitted for the Lea Hall entry in a two hour period on the 20th December (together with many others) should therefore be eliminated before deciding the result. What is frustrating is we will have no real idea who is actually winning until this is done, so please keep spreading the message and getting more genuine votes until the vote closes on 15 January!

This is the message I have received from Stechford Police:

‘Our voting web page clearly states that “Votes shown are an indication only; multiple votes from the same IP address will be discounted.”

This is the first time that a public vote like this has been undertaken in the West Midlands and Birmingham East Police are a pilot LPU for this new voting system. 

This voting process is an excellent way for us to engage with our communities and a unique opportunity to give people in east Birmingham a say on how we spend this money in their community.

All of the projects will benefit the community, providing youth services, tackling anti-social behaviour and helping provide a safer environment for residents and businesses.

We have encountered a slight limitation with the voting software, which means that some people are able to vote more than once from the same IP address.  They have managed to do this by clearing the cookies from their machine and casting another vote.  

This will not affect the voting polls.  Please rest assured that when the voting ends, multiple votes from the same IP address will be discounted to ensure a fair voting process.

As a pilot LPU, we will be able to identify any issues that arise during the voting process and put in place steps to prevent this from happening in any future polls.’