Election ballots sent to wrong town

Last updated at 13:13 29 April 2005


Hundreds of postal vote return envelopes from a Berkshire constituency have been mistakenly addressed to Skegness 160 miles away, it has emerged.

Up to 300 return envelopes for voters in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead were erroneously addressed to the Lincolnshire constituency of Boston and Skegness.

The council has blamed the error on "outside printing contractors" and has assured postal voters they "will not be disenfranchised".

It said its election staff noticed the gaffe, but only after between 200 and 300 wrongly-addressed Royal Borough voting packs had already been sent out.

They were sent "principally to electors in the Wargrave and Sonning electoral areas", the authority said.

David Lunn, the Royal Borough's returning officer, said his counterpart at Boston and Skegness has been asked to send any Maidenhead postal votes back to Maidenhead.

He said explanatory letters were being sent to all postal voters in the two electoral areas affected by the mistake.

Mr Lunn added: "We are confident that by making these arrangements we will rectify this situation in plenty of time for votes to be returned by May 5.

"We want to reassure registered postal voters who have received the incorrect return envelopes that we are making every effort to ensure that their votes are safe and will be with us in time for the count."

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