A LABOUR councillor in York is calling for a review of the system for postal voting, after concerns it was unable to cope during the recent general election.
Hull Road ward councillor Anna Baxter also wants the requirement for people to produce voter ID at polling booths to be reviewed.
She will be putting forward a motion on behalf of the Labour group at City of York Council’s full meeting on Wednesday which, if passed, would see the council calling on the new Labour government to take action.
The Press ran stories in the run-up to the election about local people who said they had been unable to vote because their postal ballot had not arrived in time. The newspaper also received letters from readers who said the same thing.
The motion being put forward by Cllr Baxter on Wednesday notes that:
- The number of voters registering to vote by post has risen from fewer than one million in 1997 to an estimated 10 million for the 2024 general election
- National law prevents Returning Officers from issuing emergency proxy votes to electors whose postal votes have not arrived on time, leaving the potential for them being unable to vote
- Issues with the delivery of postal vote applications and the late arrival of ballot papers through the postal system left many people unable to vote in 2024.
Cllr Baxter says calls for a review of postal and emergency proxy vote arrangements are backed by the Association of Electoral Officers nationally.
She said: “Since 1997 the country has gone from one million postal voters to an expected 10 million registered this year.
“The system must be able to withstand the pressure of a short-notice General Election. But legislative requirements as they are create a bottleneck the system cannot cope with.
“The system and timetable for registering for, receiving and returning postal votes needs to be reviewed in order to stop voters being disenfranchised.
“When we consider how close several constituencies were in the General Election, it’s not unreasonable to conclude problems with postal votes may have influenced results. That’s bad for democracy and requires urgent action”.
Cllr Baxter’s motion also calls for a review of the more recent requirement for Voter ID in UK elections.
She says evidence from the Electoral Commission suggests the Voter ID requirement left some voters disenfranchised.
“We need a proper review of Voter ID, including the forms of ID accepted”, Cllr Baxter said. “If it’s proving to be more damaging to democracy by disenfranchising voters than not having it, it should be scrapped altogether”.
If the Labour motion is passed at full council on Wednesday, political group leaders in York will be asked to write to the local government minister and the minister responsible for elections calling on them to carry out a ‘review of current postal and emergency proxy vote rules, including revising the timetable for postal vote registrations, to ensure everyone who registers can vote’.
The council would also ask the government to conduct a review of the requirement for voter ID - and to scrap the Voter ID system altogether if it is shown to have disenfranchised voters.
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