AN investigation has been launched by the Wiltshire Times into vote rigging on our internet poll The Weekly Vote.

Thousands of votes have been pouring in after we asked the question: Should Trowbridge town councillors who voted for a 48 per cent council tax rise resign?

This morning (Thursday) 4,557 votes had been cast - almost 30 times higher than average.

Initial investigations by our IT department discovered several cases of multiple voting, with one person voting 'no' more than 1,200 times.

The same account, registered with btcentralplus.com, also logged more than 130 'yes' votes. Four other computer accounts were used to post around 900 'no' votes.

The same trend was found among people voting for the councillors to resign, with more than 760 'yes' votes coming from three computer accounts.

Editor Andy Sambidge said he was cancelling the Weekly Vote so an investigation can be carried out.

He said: "It is a shame when a tool designed to gauge the opinion of the community is abused in this fashion.

"It seems extraordinary for one person to vote more than 1,000 times. The only intention can be to sway the outcome of the result.

"We are continuing our investigations and are committed to identifying the person or people responsible."

The Weekly Vote has been running since February.