More than 1,500 postal voting packs have gone missing in Plymouth with the council having to reissue them at the last minute, amid reports that other areas have been affected by similar disruption.
Plymouth city council blamed the loss of ballot packs on an IT issue, saying it was urgently investigating. It issued a statement on Wednesday saying those who didn’t get a pack should now have a replacement.
Three constituencies have been affected including Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, considered to be one of the most marginal seats in the country. The Conservatives held a seat here by just 500 votes in 2015.
A spokeswoman for the council added that emergency proxy votes for those living abroad were not permitted under the circumstances.
It comes amid reports of problems in other parts of on the UK, with 9,000 postal voting slips not including security marks in east Devon and 276 replacement postal votes needing to be reissued in Guildford after a postal mix-up.
More than 150 people responding to a Guardian call-out also claimed there were issues with their postal votes. Some reported that they believed they were not the only ones to be having problems, saying they had heard of many friends who had not got their packs this year.
Kate Stallworthy, 29, from the Hackney North and Stoke Newington constituency, who lives in Haarlem in the Netherlands, said she had registered on time but only got her slip on Saturday, leaving her with little time to send it off due to a bank holiday in Holland. She said: “Other people from the UK here have had the same problem, about 10 people I have spoken to have at least.”
Jacqui Martin a radiographer working in Plymouth only received her postal vote on Tuesday. She applied in early May and received an acknowledgement card advising her the postal vote should arrive on the 2 June, and to contact them if it had not arrived by 5 June. When it did not come she phoned Plymouth county council and was informed, at the time, 300 people had also not had theirs.
“I was told if I didn’t receive it [the new one] in time to post it back then I could take the form to my local polling centre but that rather defeats the object of a postal vote! This is a marginal constituency where every vote counts so it is particularly unfortunate it has happened here. No one seems prepared to take responsibility for what has happened or even explain the exact nature of the error.”
In East Devon, postal votes were sent out to voters without an official security mark. The acting returning officer for the East Devon constituency, Mark Williams, issued a statement earlier this week reassuring postal voters that if they had not yet returned their postal votes they should still do so. “We have taken all the necessary steps to ensure the postal votes are valid and will be counted,” Williams said.
Paul Arnott, chairman of the East Devon Alliance, expressed his dismay at the situation, calling for the new government “to centrally digitise the issuing of ballot papers and remove the potential for fraud in all levels of elections”.
Guildford borough council was alerted to the fact some postal vote packs had not arrived. The council said in a statement: “We have reissued 276 replacement postal votes in the last week and are doing all we can to help anyone affected by this very unfortunate non-delivery.”
It added: “We are working with Royal Mail at both a local and national level to resolve this problem. There is no pattern to the non-delivery, so it is not clear which voters haven’t received their postal vote yet. The investigation into the non-delivery will continue after the election.”
A Royal Mail spokesperson said: “We have been working closely with Guildford borough council and have delivered all the postal voting packs that we received.”
Richard Barrett, 27 and from Guildford, was one of those who did not get his pack. “I requested a postal ballot over a week ago, my election office said it had been sent first class but I never received it.”
Thangam Debbonaire, who was the Labour MP for Bristol West, got in touch with Guardian reporter John Harris via Twitter to say that she had had “lots of reports” of missing postal ballots in her constituency.
Yes I have had lots of reports of missing postal ballot papers and am re-posting this so people can get in touch with you
— Thangam Debbonaire (@ThangamMP) June 7, 2017
A Bristol city council spokesperson refuted claims there had been any
problems, saying: “We have sent 56,900 postal vote ballot paper packs
to eligible voters across the Bristol city area. There have been no
problems with issuing these postal votes and all valid applicants have
been sent their ballot papers.”
A Royal Mail spokesman said: “There have been some reports in the media and social media of issues in the delivery of postal voting packs.
“On each occasion, we have quickly investigated and clarified that we have successfully delivered all the postal votes that we have received. In instances where we have not received the correct postal voting packs from a particular council or their printers, we have provided dedicated resources to work closely with the council to help them ensure that everyone who is entitled to a postal vote receives one.”
