More than a thousand postal votes cast in last month’s election could not be counted because the Royal Mail delivered them too late, the council says.
Brighton and Hove City Council says Royal Mail delivered 1,423 completed postal ballot packs at 8am on Friday, 5 May – ten hours after the cut-off time.
Will Tuckley, the council’s interim chief executive and returning officer has called on Royal Mail bosses to finalise their investigation into the late delivery of these postal votes comprising 4.6% of those issued and received.
In a strongly worded letter sent to Royal Mail bosses several weeks ago, deputy returning officer Michael Appleford said: “We would like this matter investigated and for the importance of delivering election mail reiterated to the local teams.
“We are extremely disappointed with the service we have received from the Gatwick and Hove operational teams.
“We have also raised this issue with the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the Electoral Commission.”
With no outcome received, the returning officer is now calling for Royal Mail to complete their investigation and confirm when they received the packs delivered on Friday, 5 May.
Will Tuckley said: “The returning officer counted all ballot papers returned by 10pm on polling day. It is concerning to receive packs after the close of poll.
“Royal Mail must swiftly conclude their investigation so we can understand when they were posted and should have been delivered.
“It is possible that these postal votes were placed in post boxes across the city on polling day and therefore would not have been received by the deadline. However, we need certainty.
“We are aware that other local authorities in the South East had other issues with Royal Mail delivering poll cards and postal voting packs. It is essential that Royal Mail’s leadership understand the importance of their service in the delivery of elections.”
It’s not known which wards the uncounted postal votes were cast in. However,there were three wards where recounts took place because of small differences in votes for some candidates.
Hannah Allbrooke (Green) lost by just six votes in Brunswick and Adelaide, Leo Littman (Green) lost by 32 votes in Preston Park and Ricky Perrin (Green) lost by just one vote in Regency.
This was the first election which required an official form of ID to vote. Last month, 335 people turned up at polling stations without the correct ID. Of these, 213 returned with accepted ID and were given a ballot paper – but 122 did not.
Always leave at least a week to get there. Last minute always carries a risk.
Quality Banana republic
I received my postal vote less than a week before the election – after over 2 weeks of no letter deliveries. I had to post it as I was away on election day.
Interesting – I had mine a long time beforehand. It arrived same post as my partner’s polling card.
Maybe it was not the postal delay in getting it to you ?
We had no mail for well over two weeks (inluding the result of a tribunal hearing, posted by the court on 13 April), so I am as sure as I can be, that it was down to the postal service. I reported it to Caroline Lucas MP, who also looked into the issue. Subsequent deliveries took up to 3 weeks. Only now are we getting a couple of deliveries a week.
The count itself did not start until Friday morning so they could easily have been added in: after all, the ballot boxes were not opened up till the morning. The thought of all those votes screaming to be let out and counted….
The law says ballots must be received by 10pm.
That the count didn’t start until Friday morning is neither here nor there when it comes to that.
Do we know where abouts in the city this occurred? There have been ongoing delivery problems with Portslade Delivery office.
Serious questions as to why the council have sat on this information for so long. Seems likely there’s been political interference to prevent it coming out earlier on when the results were more likely to have been appealed. Are Labour scared of all the votes actually being counted?
Interesting thought. Those requesting a postal vote are older and maybe less likley to vote green ?
That might have been true in the past but now the majority are young people too lazy to go anywhere except there home to do anything . Vote by post , shop on their phone
The returning officer is personally responsible for the conduct of the election.
Councillors – of any party – have no role in the process.
“You can challenge a local government election , usually within 21 days of result in May 5th , when: if either:
you’re part of a group of at least 4 people who had the right to vote in the election or
you were a candidate =”
it is a bit fishy to read in the press that the greens are calling “Foul!” just now that the deadline to object passed weeks ago and the deputy returning officer Michael Appleford sent a letter to Royal Mail bosses several weeks ago, already?! double cover up? =
And what happened to the delayed postal votes? shredded already or opened up and put aside for judicial review just in case they could be counted on grounds of special circumstances, fairness, equity ect ?
A few points from someone who has been a postie for 20 years. The level of service now is sh1te, the company is only interested in delivering tracked parcels and couldn’t care less about regular mail. Due to recent delivery revisions undertaken without georouting to time how long it takes to do many walks are unachievable in the time we have to deliver it.
That said to suggest some addresses haven’t had a delivery in 3 weeks is a non starter. A single town address will be part of a 700+ address delivery and 3 weeks of mail for that lot would be dozens and dozens of mail trays with no chance of clearing the backlog. A week maybe, at a push but no longer and even that’s unlikely.
On delivery we also collect from the red letter boxes and I can confirm that our small office serving around 7000 delivery points collected at least 20 postal votes on election day.
Greens would have won and we would have more eco areas and mindfulness zones. Ahh.