General election 2010: York postal ballots fail to reach voters

Hundreds of postal ballots have gone missing in York, potentially leaving the election result in at least one constituency open to a legal challenge, the Guardian has learned. Voters who correctly applied for a postal vote but never received the ballot paper have been told that they are among hundreds whose papers are missing. The problems are being blamed on a printing error and a temporary closure at the local postal sorting office. In York Outer, the Liberal Democrats had a notional majority of just 203, meaning the missing postal votes could have a significant impact and pave the way for a losing party to challenge tonight's result in the courts. Leading electoral officers have this week warned that they have been put under intense pressure by a sudden surge in postal votes and the tight 11-day window in which people have to receive and return their ballot papers. The Guardian has separately been contacted by more than a dozen voters from other constituencies, many who are currently overseas, who have not received their postal vote in time to take part in the election today. John Taylor, the Labour election agent for York Central, said: "We've had 20 calls from people who haven't received their ballot papers. What we will be doing is having a post mortem to find out what went wrong – there are far too many complaints to ignore. "People couldn't get through to the council to make complaints and find out what was happening. If there's a very tight result then someone could appeal against the result." Kath Lettice's 84-year old father is among those whose votes have been lost. "He received confirmation that he would get a postal vote then it didn't turn up. When he spoke to the offices about it they said there were hundreds of people in that position and there is nothing they can do about it," she said. York residents whose votes were lost have struggled to get help with engaged or unanswered phone lines in the past few days. A spokesperson for the local Conservative party in York said: "The electoral services say they've done everything in their power to get the forms out but it seems hundreds of people have not received them. People feel disenfranchised. There was a problem with the printing and then the sorting office closed temporarily last week. But there are still a lot missing." York council could not be contacted tonight. Earlier this week John Turner, chief executive of the Association of Electoral Administrators, warned that the 11-day window between the registration deadline and polling day was too tight for the postal vote system – the Electoral Commission has also called for the timescale to be extended. He suggested that the high volume of late postal votes could even delay tonight's result. "When everything is very pressurised with less than 11 days between the close of nominations and polling day … it is a struggle to get everything out very quickly," he said. The system was also vulnerable to fraud because people did not have to provide identification when they registered for postal votes, he added. "If someone is intent on fraudulent activity they can do that either by making up a name or using erroneous addresses. It's not a properly verified system and it should be."