Post bosses to be rapped over polling cards

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.thisisdorset.net/mostpopular ... _cards.php

ROYAL Mail bosses have held up their hands to losing 5,000 polling cards during the North Dorset District Council elections in May.

Representatives from the postal service have now been invited to attend a meeting of the district council's scrutiny committee next month to be called to account.

Council bosses only discovered the missing polling cards when the civic office was flooded with calls from voters.

Council chief executive and returning officer, Liz Goodall, sent a letter of complaint to Royal Mail chief executive, Adam Crozier.

Mike Gibson, the general manager responsible for the service provided to councils, replied. He said: "We are committed to doing our utmost to ensure our part in any election is undertaken professionally and fully supports the role of the returning officer. On this occasion we let you down."

He says a batch of polling cards collected from the council on April 11 had been immediately franked at the local depot, and the franking machine operator had realized the automated count showed he had only processed 46,000 items. This was duly noted, but there is no record of this information being shared with the council, nor have we found any of the missing poll cards within our operation," Mr Gibson added.

Democratic services manager at the council, Jo Williams, said: "Questions need to be answered by the Royal Mail about what actions they will put in place to ensure that this doesn't happen again.

"Our confidence in them has been shaken a bit."

She says that the postal service has already compensated the council for the cost of re-sending the missing cards.

7:00pm Thursday 6th September 2007

[DGP1]

Am I being stupid but was it not that the council didn't send out the polling cards????