Herefordshire Council has apologised to anyone who may have missed their chance to vote in the local elections as a result of delayed deliveries of postal ballot forms, which hit hundreds of local authorities across the UK.
Tens of thousands of would-be postal voters were affected nationally and reports indicate that about five per cent of all UK postal votes were discarded because signatures and other personal identifiers on ballot papers did not match postal-vote application forms. However, in Herefordshire it is estimated that around 300 people were affected.
Returning officer and chief executive Neil Pringle said: “As reported in the national news, local authorities were instructed by government to use a number of specified printing companies for their postal ballot papers and unfortunately, some of these companies could not keep up with the demand.
“Despite council officers working round the clock and the previous weekend to ensure as many postal ballot papers were delivered to voters in time, we believe that around 300 postal ballot papers did not arrive early enough for those people to register their vote by post.
“Herefordshire Council took the unusual step of announcing that anyone who had not received their postal vote could turn up at their local polling station, with identification and vote. However, we are very sorry if anyone does feel they were denied their vote as a result of the delays. Although the problem was not of Herefordshire’s making, and we did everything we could to ensure as many people who wanted to vote could do so, we understand that the situation caused inconvenience and dismay to those whose postal ballot papers were late”.
Although in some wards the results were close, the council states it is impossible to determine whether the postal vote problems would have made a difference to individual outcomes. The declarations of the result of the poll, as always, were based on the votes received by close of poll.