SUPERMARKETS aren't necessarily so super, at least when votes are concerned.

As with everything else, the Government wants to modernise elections and in May this year encouraged authorities to start experimenting.

It suggested innovations such as putting ballot boxes in supermarkets, postal voting and extending voting hours.

Worcester City Council briefly considered using the entire Westside as an electoral "guinea pig", by introducing postal voting.

But the idea was soon dropped because the Government had, in true Labour fashion, indicated that the council would have to pay for the scheme itself.

No Treasury cash had been earmarked for such a pioneering project.

Now the Home Office is talking once more about electoral reform. Postal-only ballots may be introduced in the next two years "to counter electoral apathy".

Apparently, in several places such as Swindon, Norwich, Wigan and Doncaster more people voted in wards where postal votes were the only option.

None of the aforementioned towns and cities is a byword for excitement and I think it is unlikely that anything radical is stirring in Britain.

But if it does the trick, then all well and good - although the Government ought to come up with the readies to pay for any changes.

Not all innovation has been successful, incidentally.

In Watford, a polling booth was set up in an Asda supermarket for two days during the elections last spring.

Turnout actually slumped from 36 per cent the previous year to 27 per cent in May 2000.