Election firm blamed for postal ballot boob

Aug 16 2012 By Doug Archibald

THREE procedural errors led to a ballot bungle at the local council elections.

Almost 900 postal voting packs were  sent out with a vital ingredient missing ... the ballot paper itself.

Councillors were told this week an  inquest into the boob, back in April, absolved returning officer Alex  Haswell and laid the blame entirely with the “specialist election company” handling postal votes.

The 898 individuals involved had  registered for a postal vote for the first time.

The registration cut-off point was  5pm on April 18.

The new list of names went to the  printer on April 19 and the returning  officer was alerted to the problem five days later.

A contingency plan was immediately put into action and replacement  packs were sent out, nine of them  hand-delivered to voters who were  heading out of the region.

In a report to the policy and resources committee, Mr Haswell said  the contractors carried out an investigation and “took full responsibility”.

A first tranche of 21,182 already  registered postal votes had gone out  without a problem after normal procedures including a random check had  been carried out.

That did not happen with the smaller tranche and the problem was exacerbated when “a member of the  contractor’s staff” took personal responsibility for putting the packs together and signed them off, something  that should have been carried out by a  supervisor.

No quality control random checks  were carried out.

Mr Haswell said: “As is evident, had  the defined processes and procedures  been completed for the second tranche of packs as they had for the first, this  error would not have occurred.”

Just over 75 per cent, 674, of the  papers were returned. And Mr  Haswell pointed out there was a bright  side to it all.

“As the incident was widely reported  through the council’s website and local  media, it, in turn, raised awareness of  the election and the importance of  ensuring that postal votes were returned timeously,” he said.