Royal Mail loses Rickmansworth Town ward postal votes

[TrueBlueTerrier]

https://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/news/ ... tal-votes/


Royal Mail has lost postal votes for a ward with polling day less than a week away.

A by-election for Three Rivers District Council’ Rickmansworth Town ward will take place on July 4, the same date as the general election, after the resignation of former district councillor David Raw.

Many residents who will not be able to make it down to a polling station on the day have already sent in their votes by post but, today (June 28), the district council has confirmed that they are now having to be reprinted for the council by-election.

A Three Rivers District Council Spokesperson said: “Due to Royal Mail losing postal votes for the Rickmansworth Town ward by-election, the council’s canvassers will be hand-delivering the re-printed postal votes over the weekend.

“Postal votes for the General Election are unaffected.”

Royal Mail has been contacted for comment.

Former Conservative councillor David Raw was elected in the ward in May 2023 with a 116-vote majority.

[BenacreNick]

It seems so easy for the Council to blame RM, but this could easily be a Council error, which they are now trying to cover up ?

[pinstripe]

It seems so easy for the Council to blame RM, but this could easily be a Council error, which they are now trying to cover up ?

Quite possible. My office received 2 boxes of polling cards yesterday, about two dozen cards per walk, a mix of postal vote notification cards and actual polling cards. They could be replacements, or sent late, or found stashed in the mail centre. Just seemed very odd.

[HTPostman]

Every couple of years our beloved council send out the council tax letter but omit the house name/number, so it just says Joe Bloggs, King Road.

Everytime I think ok they’ll learn their lesson, then a year or two later they do it again. Many thousands of letters, all sent back.

And that’s not forgetting all the other companies who don’t put numbers on, or water bills sent to ‘pig sty, co ordinates 1885566888’ or gas bills sent to ‘energy lover, bigcityville’ (my actual city name is removed for obvious reasons).

RM are far from perfect these days but I think it’s just as likely a ‘Rickmansworth Town problem’

[ted_e_bear]

It seems so easy for the Council to blame RM, but this could easily be a Council error, which they are now trying to cover up ?

Quite possible. My office received 2 boxes of polling cards yesterday, about two dozen cards per walk, a mix of postal vote notification cards and actual polling cards. They could be replacements, or sent late, or found stashed in the mail centre. Just seemed very odd.

We've had a few as well, I wondered if they were for people who were late registering to vote.

[SpacePhoenix]

Apart from one council who sent the poll cards in envelopes the poll cards must have been direct trays to the DOs

[TopperGas]

It seems so easy for the Council to blame RM, but this could easily be a Council error, which they are now trying to cover up ?

It does seem unlikely RM would lose an entire councils polling cards, plus why are the council hand delivering rather just asking RM to resolve the problem they apparently created by delivering them?

[Barnacle]

It seems so easy for the Council to blame RM, but this could easily be a Council error, which they are now trying to cover up ?

It does seem unlikely RM would lose an entire councils polling cards, plus why are the council hand delivering rather just asking RM to resolve the problem they apparently created by delivering them?

It does seem unlikely if not impossible without a van being stolen.

There was actually an election and postal vote person talking about postal votes in Scotland, on the radio this morning and the process for notification and issuing cards and processing is really convoluted and time consuming, and everywhere is under a very tight deadline.

So rather than it being our fault, it is far more likely that they aren’t processing their part in the election process fast enough.

[Barnacle]

Apart from one council who sent the poll cards in envelopes the poll cards must have been direct trays to the DOs

Exactly and we are put under direct pressure to get them delivered without delay. I simply can’t believe anywhere would lose them or leave them sitting.