How parties 'know' you

Letter: In reply to Mr Snide (June 4) and the recent article by Peter Rhodes regarding voting records, I can assure all your readers that British elections are totally secret.

The stubs with the ballot number and your electoral number are kept totally separate from the ballots. They are stored at different locations. They are only ever rarely brought together under the auspices of the Home Office if there have been allegations of voting misconduct.

Political parties "know" how you have voted by using a piece of sophisticated computer software that uses information from canvass returns in your area, the council tax band of your property, your potential age, gleaned from your first name, and a number of other variables.

This is then linked to the publicly available data of who actually voted to predict how you did vote. This is only a computer prediction but can be uncannily accurate.

I hope this clears up the problem.

Cllr R F Whitehouse,

Organiser,

Wolverhampton SE

Liberal Democrats.