Ballot card fear (From Penarth Times)

Ballot card fear

PENARTHIANS have been left concerned about the validity of their postal ballot papers after a blunder by the electoral services department at Cardiff City Council.

Melissa Edmunds, of St Augustine's Crescent, was concerned to see that the ballot paper number on her postal vote, which was handwritten, had been crossed out and replaced with another number.

Melissa said: "It was odd because as I was looking through the ballot papers, a story came on the radio about a similar error in the north of England which resulted in the papers being declared invalid.

"The number written on my ballot paper did not match the number on my voter's declaration.

"I think it's bizarre in this day and age that such vitally important documents as ballot papers should be numbered by hand - where there is obviously the possibility of human error creeping in.

"I imagine Cardiff Council has a huge IT budget, yet they are handwriting ballot papers.

"You'd think they would have done a trial run to ensure everything ran smoothly."

Numbers on some ballot papers sent out by the Wyre Borough Council in Lancashire did not match the numbers on voters' declaration of identity forms.

Some 16,000 postal ballot papers have had to be reprinted and sent out again.

The error, if uncorrected, would mean that when returned, the faulty ballot papers would be declared invalid and therefore rejected.

Mrs Edmunds added: "Cardiff City Council told me that the new number of the paper would be checked off against a list.

"I think that completely undermines the principle of a secret ballot."

A spokesperson for Cardiff City council denied that the error would affect the validity of the vote.

In a letter sent to voters, the council said: "Due to an error in the sequential numbering of the postal vote wallets, I have changed the ballot paper number printed on your wallet.