2,000 poll cards lost (From Tewkesbury Admag)

2,000 poll cards lost

12:27pm Thursday 1st May 2008 in News

AROUND 2,000 Tewkesbury residents did not receive polling cards for this week's local council election.

Borough solicitor Sarah Freckle-ton is still investigating what happened to them.

"Our system is automatic and sent all 8,000 to the printers at the touch of button - and showed that they all went. I believe they were all printed and went to the post office, so I do not know what went wrong. I will be finding out but first we have got to get this election sorted out," she said.

She added they were not allowed to re-issue polling cards, due to the possibility of electoral fraud.

However, on Monday they sent out the same information in the form of a letter to all town-centre residents.

"Fortunately, polling cards are not mandatory for parish elections," she added.

Royal Mail spokesman Mike Dalton said that two weeks ago they were sent up to 5,000 cards to be delivered and about 1,000 more a few days later.

None were for addresses in the town centre.

Earlier this week they were asked to deliver about 2,000 letters to addresses in the town centre by first class mail, most of which arrived before the election.

Lin O'Brien, the borough coun-cil's head of democratic services declined to name the printer involved and said: "We are not blaming anyone, as far as we are aware there was a break down in our procedures and we are trying to identify where it occurred so we can ensure it does not happen again."

Euan Holloway, spokesman for the Electoral Commission, said that although polling cards did not have to be carried in order to cast a vote, they were useful for polling station staff and contained vital information for voters, such as polling station locations and opening hours.