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Royal Mail has issued a message to anyone planning to vote by post in the general election in response to reports that some areas were experiencing delays to the delivery of ballot packs.
It comes after the postal affairs minister was said to be “urgently” investigating a failure to get ballot papers out to voters in some constituencies before polls open on Thursday, July 4. Kevin Hollinrake suggested Royal Mail should have anticipated extra demand for postal votes during the summer holidays.
Today, a spokesperson for Royal Mail issued a statement, insisting there was not a backlog of ballot packs still to be sent. “We have no backlog of postal votes and, whilst we are not complacent, we remain confident that postal votes handed to us on time will be delivered prior to polling day,” they said.
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The spokesperson added: “Where specific concerns have been raised, we have investigated and confirmed ballot packs are being delivered as soon as they arrive in our network. We would welcome a review into the timetable for future elections with all stakeholders to ensure that the system for printing and administering postal votes before they are handed to Royal Mail works as smoothly as possible.”
Appearing on Tuesday’s morning broadcast round, health minister Maria Caulfield had said that Mr Hollinrake was “in direct contact” with Royal Mail and “investigating this urgently”. She said: “I know there’s extra resources going into this to try and do a sweep of all the sorting offices and make sure they’re out there.”
The PA news agency said Royal Mail sources had suggested Mr Hollinrake had not yet raised his concerns with the postal service to date, in apparent contrast to Ms Caulfield’s remarks.
Scottish First Minister John Swinney warned some Scots could be “disenfranchised” if their postal votes cannot be filled out and returned on time. Numerous voters north of the border have reported still not having received their ballots, and many have now left for a holiday overseas.
It comes after Mr Hollinrake told the Telegraph that he did not think there was any issue at play “other than Royal Mail being competent and fulfilling their obligations under the USO (Universal Service Obligation)”.
“There’s a resourcing issue. They have recruited extra people and I welcome that but they’ve got to make sure they’ve got the right number of people to deliver the mail at busy times like this,” he told the paper. “It’s not acceptable it’s sat in sorting offices. It needs to be delivered to people’s houses. So they need to put more people on to do that.”
Vijay Rangarajan, chief executive of the Electoral Commission, suggested the system had struggled in some areas with the turnaround after Mr Sunak called a surprise summer election, but said about 6.7 million postal votes had already been sent. He said that was “better than previous elections”.
He added: “At the moment the printers have been working flat out, Royal Mail have been working really flat out, so have electoral administrators to try to get postal votes out so everyone can vote.” He said the last batches should have been delivered to people on Monday and Tuesday, but that if voters are already abroad then “there’s very little” that can be done.
The regulator has said that “following the election, we will undertake research with voters and electoral administrators to understand their experiences at this poll. The administration of postal voting is one of the areas we will look at”.
Local councils are responsible for sending postal ballot forms to voters. Completed postal votes must have reached councils by 10pm on polling day.
A Local Government Association spokesperson said: “Councils and electoral staff across the country have been doing their utmost to ensure the smooth running of this election and that people can vote.” They added: “We are aware of reports of incidents where delays have happened. The postal vote system could benefit from review and more could be done to support Royal Mail and printers to be ready to deliver elections.”
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