I received the following from Walsall Council setting the record straight about postal votes sent out last week.

In its edition on Saturday 25 April 2015, the Express and Star ran a front-page headline: 

Postal vote error in key election battleground

More than 25,000 Walsall voters could be affected by ‘confusing’ postal vote envelopes that would see their cast votes being sent back to them.

The full story can be found via this link: 

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2015/04/25/postal-vote-error-in-key-election-battleground/

The article in the Express and Star was irresponsible and factually incorrect and the headline would be likely to cause concern that there had been a major problem in relation to the postal voting process.  There has not been.

The Acting Returning Officer has issued over 25,000 postal voting packs last week.  92% reached the elector’s doormat on Thursday 23 April and the remaining 8% will have been delivered by Saturday.

The postal vote packs are the same design as used for the last five years.  The return envelope (Envelope B) does not contain an address window.  It is pre-printed with the Returning Officers address.  This would suggest that the elector attempted to return the postal vote in the outgoing envelope because either he had mislaid the envelope B or didn’t receive an envelope B.  The postal vote pack contains a simple guide on how to complete your postal vote and the components that the elector should have received.

The elections office to date has received 10 phone calls from electors who have claimed not to have received a Return Envelope.  The advice we have provided is to write the Freepost address indicated within the pack on to an envelope.  It is not unusual to have calls of this nature and the amount we have received this year is less than at the elections in May 2014.  These kind of very minor administrative issues are part and parcel of any election anywhere.

This morning, the first day of postal vote opening, we have received back 28% of completed postal vote packs compared with the Local/Euro elections where on the first day of opening we had received only 13% of postal votes.