An OnTheWight reader, who goes under the name of Postal Voter got in touch yesterday claiming his daughters (both away at University) had each received a Conservative candidate’s election flyer in the same envelope as their postal vote ballot papers.
He said,
I was chatting with one of my daughters over the weekend, whilst they are at University and they happened to mention in passing that the letter from the council with their postal vote, reply letter/card, etc. also contained one of the three prospective candidate’s literature in the same envelope.
We queried this with her and she replied it was only one leaflet and not three (who are standing in our ward) leaflets.
We followed this up with our second daughter, also at University, and she said that she had received her postal vote and the details of one candidate only.
Allegations refuted
We got in touch with the Isle of Wight council last night to seek clarification on whether this was possible or legal.
They got back to us at lunchtime today, with Davina Fiore, Returning Officer, saying,
“We do not, and are not allowed to, send out material on behalf of any candidate to electors at any time. Postal vote envelopes are sealed in County Hall under the supervision of a deputy returning officer – no candidates or agents are allowed to be present at the issue of postal votes. Once sealed, postal votes are sent straight to the Post Office for onward distribution.
“Under election rules, candidates do have access to the list of absent voters so it is not unusual for parties to send their literature to absent voters around the same time as we send out postal votes.
“Also candidates and agents can, and have in the past, sent out the forms that a voter would need to request a postal vote, these can be sent with other electoral material. For tomorrow’s election, this form would have needed to have been completed and returned to the Electoral Office by 5pm on 17 April.
“If anyone has any concerns about the electoral process they should contact the returning officer at County Hall on 821000 ext 6316 immediately.”
What caused the confusion?
It has been suggested by some readers that confusion could have arisen if the envelope containing the ballot papers arrived in the same post as the candidates flyer.
We have sought to obtain further information from ‘Postal Voter’, who said that he would be reporting this to the Returning Officer, and will let you know once we hear back.
Image: Kevin Steinhardt under CC BY 2.0
