SIR,

Mr Griggs's letter 'Is Big Brother Watching?' in last week's Beacon reminded me of my own experience when I voted in a general election in Monmouth some decades ago.

A few weeks after the election I was astonished to receive a letter from the political party of the candidate I had voted for.

It expressed delight that I had voted for their man and informed me about the party and how I could become an active supporter.

I had not told anybody how I had voted, and I was quite unable to explain this. Like Mr Griggs, I had always believed that the ballot was secret.

So I took care at subsequent elections to watch the procedure carefully, and I observed that my ballot paper was torn out of a book and my polling number was written on the counterfoil in the book, exactly as was described by the spokesman for MCC in the footnote to Mr Griggs's letter.

The ballot paper and the counterfoil carried the same serial number, so it would be quite possible for anyone to trace my vote back to me if they had access to the documents.

In the footnote to Mr Griggs's letter, the MCC spokesman gave the reassurance that such access could only be given by the issue of a high court order, and that after a time lapse the documents are confidentially destroyed.

But my experience leaves me wondering whether these rules are always applied as meticulously as one would hope.

Marian Hall

(Monmouth)