A site for residents of Prince's Ward, SE11, in the London Borough of Lambeth. Check for updates from your Labour Action Team's campaigning, local information, and meetings.

Saturday 8 May 2010

Candidate disgusted by ballot paper debacle


Labour candidate Mark Harrison has expressed his outrage at a mix up by Lambeth Council which resulted in 26 people being issued with the wrong ballot papers on Thursday morning.

A printing error meant ballot papers for Prince's ward instead listed candidates for a local election in Hackney.

Voters expressed their confusion to the presiding officer but were dismissed and told they had no choice but to cast their ballot. Only when candidate Mark Harrison went to vote and pointed out the ballot paper was wrong did the presiding officer act to sort out the situation.

The 26 people who cast invalid ballots were contacted by the Council and invited to cast their vote a second time.

Mark said 'I'm most angry that the presiding officer refused to listen to voters who told him there was a problem. Had my neighbour not alerted me to the problem within minutes many more people could have been disenfranchised. I will be making an official complaint about the conduct of this presiding officer, which disgraces Lambeth Council.'

The BBC picked up on this story on election day - read more here

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Promoted by David Amos and Joanne Simpson of Prince's Branch Labour Party (Vauxhall Constituency and Lambeth Borough) all at 264A Rosendale Road, SE24 9DL