Pitfalls of the postal vote (From Warrington Guardian)

Pitfalls of the postal vote

THE poor turn out at local elections and area forums has nothing to do with the so called 'inconvenience of polling stations' - after all, they are open for over 12 hours and their sites have been convenient and well established for many years.

Their replacement by postal voting is of great concern.

The complicated voter's instructions, on two A4 sheets, explain the use of two different envelopes for the ballot paper, whereas we used to receive a single and simple postcard. The ballot paper itself requires a witness to sign a declaration of identity, which is meaningless because the retuning officers openly admit they haven't the time to check that the witnesses are genuine. Therefore fraud, as was in Oldham, is a real possibility with no means of establishing as to what extent.

With the Royal Mail admitting that every week they lose 280,000 items of mail, how are we to know that our vote has even been delivered? The only solution is to hand your ballot paper into the Town Hall. And how inconvenient is that!

If your ballot paper does arrive, the Returning Officer and staff have powers to open it before voting day. How secure is that?

So much for privacy!

No Mrs Rimmer. The reason for poor turn outs is the council's lack of genuine consultations, with St Helens residents, with any 'public consultations' being purely cosmetic to satisfy the 'Council Audit', whilst the council forge ahead with their original intentions.

And if you want an example - when were St Helens voters ever consulted about their opinions on polling stations vs. postal voting?

Hoi Polloi of Haydock (name and address supplied).