THE concerns I expressed in your 'Soapbox' feature (LET, April 8), on the gross unfairness and insecurity of Jack Straw's experimental Saturday voting, in town centres only, brought a rash of undemocratic mutterings from the Labour Party in Blackburn with Darwen.

According to Coun D Hollings (Letters, April 19), as I live out of the borough I have no right to speak out. I have a right to defend democracy wherever I live.

But one can understand this from a party which proposed to shut up elected councillors and run the borough with a highly-paid, select, secret cabinet.

It is unfair that only some people should have two days on which to choose to vote. Others are deprived because of location or circumstances.

Mr P Watson, the council's chief executive, who is also returning officer for the Blackburn with Darwen constituency, has sought to support this extra town-centre-only poll.

He is in danger of negating his impartiality and still fails to address the important question of the protection of the poll against impersonation. In the 1997 general local elections, held on the same day, the vigilance of one presiding officer prevented an attempted impersonation.

He noticed that the person concerned had earlier voted under another name on that day. The attempt was also witnessed by an election agent and one will never know why a prosecution was not brought.

If it was before Mr Watson's appointment, I am more than happy to provide him, in confidence, with copy correspondence from the civil authorities.

The Saturday experiment is flawed because the role of presiding officer is diminished when some people have voted in another place on a different day.

Experiments to be held in other boroughs are for postal voting only, which will be open to even greater abuse.

These matters have not been thought through or even properly discussed. If politicians are concerned about low polls, then perhaps a change of faces might bring an improvement.

ARTHUR HOLMES, Whalley Old Road, Langho, Blackburn.