Thousands fail to receive postal vote ballots ahead of general election

The Government has said it is “urgently” investigating why some people have still not received their postal ballots just two days before the general election.

There are reports of thousands of postal ballots not being delivered in time across the UK. The Royal Mail has denied there is a “backlog” of postal votes. 

There have been reports that ballots have not arrived for voters in Lewisham, Southwark and Kensington.

Southwark council said it had processed more than 50,000 postal votes for the election so far but there had been some delays in delivering papers in the SE22 postcode and other areas.

A spokeswoman said: “We understand there have been some delays in the delivery of some ballot papers in the SE22 and other areas, and we have raised this at a senior level with the Royal Mail.

“They have stated they are confident they will be able to deliver all outstanding ballot papers in time for recipients to vote in the general election. We will continue to monitor the situation closely.”

Ellie Reeves, Labour candidate for Lewisham West and East Dulwich, sent a letter to senior public affairs manager at Royal Mail, Micahel Hogg, on Thursday of last week after “multiple residents” advised her that they had not received their postal ballots.

She said it was unacceptable that some residents may be left disenfranchised at the general election.

She also said: “I am aware that irregular and delayed post has been a recurrent issue in SE22 since the closure of the local sorting office.”

The Royal Mail sorting office at East Dulwich moved to Peckham in September 2018 in what the Royal Mail described as an “efficiency drive” as the Silvester Road site was not “fit for purpose”.

But, since the move, residents in the area have reported irregular deliveries leading to missed hospital appointments, increased fines and tax bills.

More than 90 constituencies across the country have raised concerns about ballots failing to arrive, according to The Telegraph.

A Royal Mail spokesman said: “We have no backlog of postal votes and, while we are not complacent, we remain confident that postal votes handed to us on time will be delivered prior to polling day.

“Where specific concerns have been raised, we have investigated and confirmed ballot packs are being delivered as soon as they arrive in our network.

“We would welcome a review into the timetable for future elections with all stakeholders to ensure that the system for printing and administering postal votes before they are handed to Royal Mail works as smoothly as possible.”

The deadline to register to vote by post was June 19, with ballots normally arriving about a week before polling day.

Postal votes have to arrive by 10pm on polling day.

Pictured top: Postal vote pack for 2021 (Picture: Wikimedia Commons)