New vote denied scandal looms due to postal vote delays

Hundreds of thousands of UK voters abroad risk being denied their vote in the UK General Election because their ballot papers did not arrive in time.

Photo credit: The Bulletin

New Europeans UK and our partner organisations Unlock Democracy and British Overseas Voters Forum have launched an investigation into postal voting after being contacted by a number of members who feared their completed ballots would not reach the UK in time or in worse case scenarios had not yet received their postal ballots at all.

To test the effectiveness of the postal vote system, New Europeans and its partners are asking overseas voters to report when they applied for a postal vote, how long their postal vote pack took to reach them and when they sent their postal vote back.

Following the abolition of the 15 year rule which excluded millions of UK citizens abroad from voting in UK general elections, any British citizen living abroad now has the right to vote.

There has been a sharp rise in the numbers of overseas electors registered to vote. Postal votes will only be counted if they reach the returning officer in the constituency concerned by the end of polling day.

The survey was launched by Else Kvist, Head of Campaigns for New Europeans UK, Tom Brake, Head of Unlock Democracy and Bruce Durrington of the British Overseas Voters Forum.

Else Kvist, Head of Campaigns at New Europeans, said:

“Along with 1.6 m EU citizens, I had my vote denied in the 2019 European Parliament elections due to an administrtive technicality. I hope we are not about to see hundreds of thousands of UK citizens denied a vote in the General Election due to flaws in the postal vote system.”

Bruce Durrington, Head of British Overseas Voters Forum said:

“We do not believe the postal vote system will give UK voters around the world enough time to get their ballots back in time for them to be counted. That’s why we urge people to complete the survey and help us show this is the case.”

Tom Brake, Director of Unlock Democracy said:

“At the moment, thousands of people could be putting their votes int post boxes around the work thinking job done - in reality their votes may arrive weeks after polls have closed and never be counted.”

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Your support will mean we have much greater impact when we share our survey results with the Electoral Commission and politicians.

This gives us a much better chance to expose the scale of this new vote denied scandal affecting so many UK citizens abroad and secure remedial action.