Postal vote error leaves some people without ballot papers ahead of Senedd election

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https://uk.news.yahoo.com/postal-vote-e ... 18250.html

Over 1,300 applicants for postal votes were left waiting to receive their ballot papers ahead of the election for the Welsh Parliament on Thursday, a council has said.

It was revealed on Monday that postal votes had not been delivered to voters in Cardiff’s Caerdydd Ffynnon Taf and the Caerdydd Penarth constituencies.

Royal Mail said the postal votes were “not printed” and “never handed over” to them for delivery.

Cardiff Council said the “print run for the supplementary voting packs scheduled for last week did not fully take place”.

A spokesperson for Cardiff Council, said: “Following further discussions with the local authority’s contracted print provider, it has been confirmed that, while the relevant data was received from the Council, the print run for the supplementary voting packs scheduled for last week did not fully take place.

“Initially this resulted in 1,388 packs not being delivered to electors in Cardiff, in the Caerdydd Ffynnon Taf and Caerdydd Penarth constituencies. To put that into context, almost 47,000 postal vote packs have been issued in recent weeks, and to date, more than 26,500 completed packs have already been returned.”

However, the council has ensured postal vote packs for the affected addresses have “since been supplied to the the local authority, and they have been hand delivered by Cardiff Council staff - with a small number issued by priority mail where appropriate”.

The spokesperson added: “Our immediate priority is to enable members of the electorate affected by the issue with the supplementary voter pack print run to exercise their democratic right.”

In Wales, a new system of voting has been adopted that has seen the country divided into 16 super-constituencies, each of which will send six members to the Senedd, with seats allocated proportionally according to the number of votes cast.

Labour, the Conservatives, the Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru, Reform and the Greens have a full slate of candidates in all the 16 constituencies.

The enlargement of the Senedd from 60 to 96 seats, together with the introduction of new constituencies and a change in the system of voting, means it will not be possible to compare directly the state of the parties before the election with what happens on polling day.