Criticisms about people using bogus names to sign two recent cycle lane petitions have prompted Brighton and Hove City Council to make the process more rigorous.
The council has made changes to its e-petitions so that those signing now need to enter a verified email address as well as their home address.
Until the change, anyone could sign a petition without any checks to verify their home address or email address.
The process was updated after the claims of “sabotage” and bogus signatories surfaced before a meeting of the full council meeting last Thursday (7 April).
The mayor of Brighton and Hove, Councillor Alan Robins, told the meeting at Hove Tow Hall: “This behaviour, where it has occurred, is very disappointing for the local democratic process. Going forward, we have put in place additional verification measures.”
The meddling claims were made after several false names appeared on the two petitions – for and against a new Old Shoreham Road cycle lane in Hove.
Green councillor Jamie Lloyd’s name was falsely listed on the petition against the cycle lane and, likewise, Conservative councillor Robert Nemeth’s name appeared on the petition in favour of the lane. Other bogus names included Donald Duck and Adolf Hitler.
After the mayor said that extra verification measures were in place, the Local Democracy Reporting Service registered on the council’s website using false details to sign a petition as Minnie Mouse.
After the council was told how easy it was to sign a petition using a false identity, officials made the latest changes.
The council said: “We’ve taken steps to improve the authentication and verification process on our website for people signing petitions.
“The process now requires name, email, password, address and postcode – and the user details can only be confirmed via a confirmation email.
“The move follows concerns that a small number of signatures on the two petitions relating to cycle lanes were clearly bogus.”
Haha, there’s been plenty of articles in various papers by a certain cycling person who claimed they’d received thousands of e-mails to keep the O.S.R cycle lane.
Despite these thousands, only a few hundred decided to actually do the surveys when they were presented.
There also needs to be some verification of Brighton residence. Both petitions were shared across the internet so who knows how many signed were actually residents of Brighton.
Not ‘bogus’ the correct word is ‘fraudulent’…