A South Wales Argus Internet poll has been scuppered after the paper found evidence of attempts to rig the vote.

The newspaper had been canvassing views on the design of a footbridge to cross the River Usk, and asked its readers to vote for their favourite from a choice of three.

Votes were cast by post, phone, and on a poll on its website - but the Argus has now disregarded the 828 votes cast via the online poll.

It discovered that one interested party had e-mailed colleagues across the UK urging them to vote for a particular design - and another was using a chatroom to encourage people to vote.

Argus editor Gerry Keighley said: "We have received 828 votes via our Internet poll but because the integrity has been completely undermined by this vote rigging we can't offer it as a true guide to public opinion.

"This is a risk you run when running polls like this. We will make available the votes cast other ways."

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