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A conservative party election agent has been found guilty of misleading voters in a Labor stronghold neighborhood into signing nomination forms for conservative candidates in a local election.
Diana Dianescu posed as a Green Party or Labor Party representative, or a council official, when she knocked on doors in Hackney, east London, during local elections in May 2018.
Her scam arose after a Hackney resident, Sandra Stanton, saw her and her husband’s names on the council’s website as advisers to three conservative candidates, and she complained to the council, which relayed her complaint to police. .
After a five-week trial involving 32 prosecution witnesses, Danescu, of South Woodford, east London, was convicted Friday of 16 crimes of causing or allowing a false signature to be included on a nomination form in Under the People’s Representation Act of 1983 He was given a six-month suspended sentence and told to perform 200 hours of community service.
An investigation found that Danescu had submitted a series of nomination forms to Hackney’s teller that contained the names and signatures of voters who had been misled into believing he was a different candidate, or whose name had matched someone else’s signature.
At the time, Danescu, 28, had been working for the Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) as a campaign manager, and was also running in the Redbridge council elections as a conservative candidate for the Chadwell ward.
For candidates to register to be on the local election ballot, they must gather the signatures of 10 local voters to send to the local teller. Danescu had acted as an electoral agent for 29 conservative candidates, making her legally responsible for the conduct of their political campaigns and allowing her to supervise the elections and the counting of votes.
DC Jim Morrison of the Metropolitan Police Special Investigation Team said: “Diana Danescu deliberately misled Hackney voters in the run-up to the local government elections in May 2018. In addition, she submitted the names of voters who They had not signed the nomination papers.
“The Metropolitan Police is committed to maintaining the integrity of the democratic process. I would like to thank the people who live and work in Hackney who came forward and provided evidence at the trial. “
