Nearly a year after councillors backed new rules on signing council petitions, anyone can still sign without verification.
The issue has come to light after accusations that both sides have nobbled two petitions – for and against a new proposed cycle lane for Old Shoreham Road, Hove.
Signatures on the petition backing a “permanent well-planned” cycle lane included well-known opponents, with Conservative councillor Robert Nemeth’s name appearing twice along with Adolf Hitler.
Councillor Nemeth said: “It’s concerning that fake signatures are appearing on this petition in the run up to a serious debate on the matter at full council tomorrow (Thursday 7 April).
“What has up to now been good-natured rivalry between the two opposing petitions is descending into farce when one is attempting to distort the level of support at this key juncture.
“The matter has been reported to (the democratic services team) at the council, who will make a decision on the matter shortly.”
Pro-cycling campaigners have spotted duplicate names on the petition stating that Brighton and Hove City Council should not build any more cycling infrastructure along Old Shoreham Road.
They also found cycling advocate and Green councillor Jamie Lloyd’s name on the petition objecting to a new cycle lane.
Councillor Lloyd is an unlikely signatory given that he works for cycling charity Sustrans and is a vocal advocate for more and better cycling lanes.
In May last year, the council’s Policy and Resources Committee backed tighter rules, requiring a postcode for all those signing petitions on the council’s website.
Councillors made the move after accusations that people from outside the city had “nobbled” previous petitions on the temporary Old Shoreham Road cycle lane.
Users need to set up an account with an address and postcode before signing a petition. But there are no checks to verify those details or a requirement to verify the email address before signing in.
A member of the public whose name appeared on both petitions, but asked not to be identified, said that they had signed up as “Donald Duck” with a false address and email.
They said: “The trouble with these ePetitions is that, even with the tighter checks on details of who is responding, there seem to be no validations on things like email addresses. The whole ePetition scheme is totally open to manipulation.”
Both petitions have more than 2,000 signatures, exceeding the 1,250 required to trigger a full council debate.
The council said: “We’ve been made aware of a small number of signatures on the two petitions relating to cycle lanes that are clearly bogus.
“Unfortunately, all petition forums, such as the council’s, can attract users who are determined to misuse the process.
“We are happy to check any other signatures people may be concerned about. Please email democratic.services@brighton-hove.gov.uk if you have any concerns.
“We are currently looking at how we can best add a further level of verification to the petition signature process to avoid this issue in the future.”
The council currently has no formal plans for a cycle lane along Old Shoreham Road but has not dismissed the idea altogether.
The road features in the council’s “Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan” (LCWIP) as a potential location for a formally planned cycle lane.
The temporary cycle lane was created in May 2020, with funding from the government’s covid-19 emergency active travel fund.
It was removed last September after a public consultation.
The petitions are due to debated at a meeting of the full council at Hove Town Hall tomorrow. The meeting is scheduled to be webcast on the council’s website.
>“We are currently looking at how we can best add a further level of verification to the petition signature process to avoid this issue in the future.”
A good place to start would be investing in some up to date software that isn’t running on insecure technology. The current ePetitions site is running ASP.Net 4.0, which is no longer supported by Microsoft and thus represents a serious security risk. It also clearly doesn’t have adequate data collection if it’s not recording IP addresses, user agents and referrer data as part of basic fraud prevention.
I appreciate that buying and maintaining software on a post-2010 local government budget is extremely difficult, but it would be better to remove ePetitions altogether than allow the process to be made a mockery of like this by relying on a tool that clearly isn’t up to the job.
Indeed it is a mockery: and the sea front bike lane is the worst.
It all sounds like the Argus readers’ comments.
Unlike the extremely elite readers that comment here 😉
Who is going to pay for this new cycle lane? The council tax payers had to pay to remove the original OSR cycle lane. At the time I’m almost certain the government told the council, if they removed the cycle lane there would be no more money for new cycle lanes. If the residents of Brighton and Hove are going to have to pay surely they should be asked? Maybe a referendum is more suitable than a petition