Memorandum by Oldham Metropolitan Borough
Council (PVF 22)
1. Yes—this Authority, like all others
involved in the Pilot, could not make definite plans until the
format of the election was decided. Plans had to be put in place
to cover both types of election; this meant that certain work
was done which, if information had been available earlier, would
not have been contemplated.
2. Yes—the timescale was very difficult
to deal with, more so as this Authority was holding all out elections
so there were more Agents and Candidates to deal with. The facility
for an elector to have their postal vote redirected meant that
final data could not be produced until after the 17 May, when
the time allowed in the Order had passed. This shortened the time
for printing, sorting and delivering the ballot packs.
3. This Authority has not had the experience
of an all-postal ballot before. One problem with staffing the
election in June is that more people take holidays at this time
of year than do in May, so some experienced staff were not available.
4. Incidents of alleged fraud (from information
provided by the Public) have been reported to the Police. Arrests
have been made and investigations are continuing.
5. The Printing Company this Authority used
could not cope with the workload it took on, despite assurances
when original discussions took place that they were well within
their capacity. The company sub-contracted work to another printer,
who it turned out, was not able to cope with the complexity of
the work, or the precision required, or the timescale.
6. A total of 19 of our 20 wards had to
be reprinted. We were aware that one full ward and parts of two
other wards had already been handed over to Royal Mail for delivery.
Upon checking the remainder of the packs taken from the printer,
it became apparent that there were too many mistakes within the
packs for us to have any confidence in the remainder of the work
this printer may undertake (papers within a pack were not matching).
The Returning Officer put the contingency plan in place, withdrawing
the work from the original printer and placing it with another
who agreed to take the work on at short notice and taking over
the responsibility for the delivery of the packs.
7. Royal Mail worked alongside this Authority
when it became clear there was a problem with our ballot packs,
collecting and delivering the second load directly to the Council
so that we could assess the scale of the problem. Throughout the
whole process Royal Mail have kept in contact and provided a regular
delivery service. Allegations (anonymously given to Candidates)
that sacks of postal ballots were left lying around at the depot
were transmitted to Royal Mail, investigated and found to be unsubstantiated.
A small number of ballot packs for other Authorities have found
their way to Oldham's Elections Office, and some of Oldham's were
delivered to other Authorities. These were collected/delivered
in agreement with the other Authorities by Council staff. The
percentage number of ballot packs involved was no bigger than
that at a traditional election.
8. It is estimated that out of 158,956 ballot
packs, Council staff delivered 118,500 by hand. Only a small number
of packs were collected by hand (approx 50), these by the Returning
Officer's staff when visiting to assist the elector.
9. As far as we are aware, all packs were
delivered to the electors on time; if information came to hand
that this was not the case, alternative packs were provided and
delivered personally.
10. There have been comments about the need
for the declaration to be witnessed. Some people stated they had
no one to sign for them, others did not know who could or could
not witness their signature. The dimensions of the European ballot
Paper meant that when it was folded and inserted into the A envelope,
the A envelope did not then fold over in exactly the right place
for sealing, comments were received regarding this. Some comments
have been received regarding the instructions to voters; some
elderly electors have been confused by having two envelopes and
have required assistance to sort them out at the ADP's. A number
of electors sent the ballot papers back in the A envelope and
the declaration back in the B envelope—this led to extra
work taking up time at the opening stage when trying to match
the papers to allow the votes.
11. In the week following the 10 June a
total of 322 ballot packs arrived too late to be counted, this
is 0.4% of the total packs received by 10pm on the 10 June. A
figure of 2,064 ballot papers were rejected before the count and
a figure of 571 were rejected at the count, this gives a total
of 2,635 rejected ballot papers. The number of returned ballot
packs was 72,567 therefore 3.6% of all ballot papers returned
were rejected.
12. Yes, the turnout for the Local election
has increased, this year was 45.7%, last year it was 38.1 %. The
European election in 1999 was approx 21%, this year it was 45.7%
13. N/A
14. Extra staff were required for the following:
scanning the returned postal ballot packs, to supervise the opening
of the returned postal ballot packs, opening and sorting of the
postal ballot packs, dealing with polling progress information,
processing the incomplete declarations of identity, the extra
enquiry lines required to deal with the calls from the public,
visitors to go out to the electors over the full period. In order
to get the ballot packs delivered in time it was necessary to
employ an army of people to deliver over the Bank Holiday period.
This incurred extra cost.
15. The cost of this election has not yet
been assembled, but it will be in the region of £480,000.00.
We are naturally hoping to recover part of this cost from the
original printing contractor.
AW Kilburn
Local Returning Officer
Oldham MBC
| 
