Next week’s General Election is on a knife-edge and every vote will count.
Postal votes are often decisive in close contests, but at the last election more than 500 were rejected in Wirral.
This sort of number could determine who wins in certain marginal seats in Wirral .
According to the most accurate poll at the last General Election , both Wirral South and Wirral West are within the margin of error, meaning the result could go either way- Labour or Conservative.
Both of these seats saw well over 100 postal votes rejected in 2017 and just like 16 seats in the last election, they could be decided by less than 200 votes.
Why were the votes rejected?
The most common reason was problems with people’s personal details.
Out of 510 rejected postal votes, 231 were not counted due to the person’s signature, date of birth or both not matching up to the records on the electoral register.
Other notable reasons for postal votes being rejected included the returning officer receiving them after the polls closed. This accounted for 115 rejected votes.
People simply failing to give their date of birth or signature was another issue which resulted in votes being rejected.
How to make sure your vote isn’t rejected
The Electoral Commission advises all those wishing to cast a postal vote to read the instructions very carefully, as failing to follow them could lead to their vote being rejected.
This will help to make sure you sign the ballot paper in the correct place and add personal information such as your date of birth.
Once the ballot paper has been completed it is important to sign the postal voting statement, as failing to do so will lead to your vote being rejected.
The Electoral Commission also advise you to complete your ballot paper alone and in secret to avoid any undue outside influence and store it somewhere safe until you are ready to post it.
When you are ready, you should take the postal vote package to the postbox yourself if you are able to.
If you cannot post it yourself, ask someone you know and trust to post it for you, or contact your local authority to ask if they can collect it.
Your postal vote needs to be with your local council by 10pm on polling day to be counted.
If you cannot post your vote before the day of the election, take it to your polling station or local council on polling day.
