Memorandum by Lancaster City Council (PVF
27)
I write in respect of your letter of 14 June
to Sir Howard Bernstein, the North West Regional Returning Officer
for the European Parliamentary Elections. Sir Howard has asked
Local Returning Officers to respond to the ODPM's Select Committee
questions on the recent all-postal pilots, which I address in
turn below.
GENERAL
1. Did you experience problems because the
Government was slow in publishing the necessary statutory instruments?
Yes. There was insufficient time to plan the
election and train staff, which meant that key staff were thinking
on their feet and carrying out much the work themselves with insufficient
delegation.
2. Were problems caused by the very short
time scale between close of nominations and the need to deliver
postal voting documents to electors?
Yes, because the printers had to work to a very
tight timescale, and had perhaps underestimated the amount of
work and minimum margins of error required.
3. Earlier pilots had been self selecting—ie
those who were keen and had the resources volunteered. Did the
fact that all-postal ballots were mandatory for these elections
cause problems with skills and resources?
As previously mentioned, the burden on key staff
was high, but as with other local authorities we were able to
make the necessary resources available. The fact that the pilot
was throughout the North West region meant that we were not alone
and could offer and accept support from neighbouring authorities.
4. Have you received/reported any allegations
of fraud?
No.
PRINTING AND
DISSEMINATION
5. Was there sufficient printing capacity
to cope with all-postal elections?
We experienced problems with our printers, who
were placed on Royal Mail's risk register as potentially not being
able to meet their deadline. In the end our postal packs were
printed just one day behind schedule, and this did not delay their
delivery by Royal Mail.
6. Did any of the ballot papers require re-printing?
If so, how many and why?
We had no time to organise the re-printing of
ballot packs, but did have to handwrite some blank ones because
they were not printed correctly:
128—which should have been sent to a redirected
address
15—to electors who had been added
to the register late
28—to electors who had cancelled a
proxy and wanted to vote by post themselves
21—to electors with overseas ballot
pack addresses
We also had to envelope up and manually issue
ourselves 5,213 packs to houses of multiple occupancy, which the
printers ran out of time to do.
7. Do you have any comments to make on the
performance of the Royal Mail?
We had no problems with Royal Mail at this authority.
8. How many ballot papers did you:
(a) deliver by hand
5,213
9. How many electors do you estimate did
not receive ballot papers:
(a) by polling day—21 (overseas)
VOTING PRACTICALITIES
AND RETURNS
10. Are you aware of any practical difficulties
experienced by voters, as a result of:
(a) the need for a signed witness declaration
Yes, we had several phone calls from people saying
they couldn't get this witnessed and didn't wish to come to the
ADP. We returned 344 declarations to electors who hadn't got their
declaration witnessed properly (out of 41,782 returns).
(b) the dimensions of the ballot envelopes
No particular problems.
(c) complex and unclear instructions?
Several electors complained that the process of postal
voting was complex, but very few complained about the actual instructions.
11. How many and what percentage of ballot
papers:
(a) arrived back too late to be counted
116, that is 0.1% of the electorate, or 0.3% of the
total votes cast.
(b) were not counted because of errors in
completion of the ballot paper or the witness declarations? What
percentage were those of the total votes cast?
783, that is 1.9% of the total votes cast
12. Did all-postal voting increase turnout?
Yes 24% in 1999 in this area,
compared to 40% in 2004.
COST AND
RESOURCES
14. As a result of using the all-postal system
did you need to bring in:
(a) extra staff
Yes, external staff assisted with opening postal
votes and staffing the ADP, as well as local authority staff
(b) staff on overtime
Staff worked out of hours and at the weekend, but
were not paid overtime by the local authority.
Paid out of the clerical allowance to be reclaimed
from ECU—total staff payments approx £37,000.
15. What was the overall cost of the election?
16. FOR AREA
WITH EUROPEAN
ELECTIONS ONLY
Was the cost greater than a traditional
ballot and if so, by how much?
Yes, traditional ballot would
have cost approx £100,800.
I do hope that this information is useful to
the Select Committee.
Roger Muckle
Deputy Local Returning Officer
| 
