I am once again very annoyed to find after visiting my local polling station to vote that voting is still not an anonymous procedure. Every time I vote I ask why? When we should all be voting confidentially my number is written against the numbered voting slips I am given. Yet again I am told that “it is confidential”. This adds weight to the conspiracy theory that the election vote-tracing procedure has been used to identify people voting for fringe candidates.

Votes can be traced by matching the numbered ballot paper to its similarly numbered counterfoil; the numbered counterfoil also bears the voter’s registration number from the electoral register which is hand-written by the Polling Clerk when the ballot paper is issued.

As all the ballot papers for each candidate- including fringe candidates such as Sinn Fein, communists, fascists, nationalists, etc.- are bundled together, anyone having access to those documents can speedily trace the name and address of every voter for such candidates if they wish.

In 1981 Gordon Winter-a former agent of BOSS, the South African Secret Service- writing in his book, Inside Boss, claimed that the South African government knew the identity of everyone who voted for the Communist Party of Great Britain-thanks to British intelligence using this simple vote-tracing procedure. In any event, the notion that we have a secret vote is very misleading.

Has anyone else ever given this issue any thought, it is just me that is angered but this corrupt so called anonymous ballot?

J Teague Quibo Lane Weymouth