THE pilot postal vote experiment introduced next week is intended to encourage more people to take part in the local council and European elections writes Leigh Journal columnist Lesley Richards

I hope it does, but I have my doubts.

People are not natural form readers and filler-inners and at first glance everything about the system seems so complicated.

I've not even got round to opening my own yet and he indoors has decided to forego his rights because he's given up on all government in this country -- and he can't be bothered reading a list of instructions.

Postal voting is supposed to be safe, secure and secret, but when you think about it the system, despite the witness clause, is still open to abuse. What is to stop me filling in the voting slip and signing the witness statement myself as someone else?

What is to stop me using my partners' paper to double my vote and sign as another witness?

I can't see there being many investigations made.

The candidates are going to have to rely on people being totally honest.

I witnessed a relative completing her voting slip and she had put crosses by a Conservative, a Labour and a Community Party candidate. When I asked why she said she had voted for the people who lived locally.

The councillors, all facing election stress this time, must be shaking in their shoes.

Everyone on the electoral register should by now have received their ballot pack and they still have a week to fill them in and post them off to be received by next Thursday when counting starts.

Let's not to be apathetic, get the slips filled in immediately and post them off. We have to make our votes count or we have no right to complain.