THIS newspaper has reported in the past how some Tory MSPs had acted outwith the spirit of Electoral Commission guidance by having their party HQ address in the most prominent place on invitations to constituents to apply for a postal vote.
That is, after all, the sort of thing we might expect from Oliver Mundell or the like, but how would you feel if your request was being returned to an electoral registration office a couple of hundred miles away, say, in Cheshire?
It happened to our reader Susan Grant, from Tain, in Ross-shire, who phoned her local electoral office in Inverness, to ask about a postal vote.
“After a delay of 10 days, I received the application form today,” she told The National.
“The information on the back tells me to return the form to my local Electoral Registration Office but they helpfully also enclose a pre-paid reply envelope – presumably as another option although this is not clear as the form states that it should be returned to the local ERO.
“The address on this envelope is Highland and Western Isles ERO, Warrington, England – to say I was surprised is an understatement!”
We at The National were also surprised, more so after Grant told us she already had a letter from the Highland and Western Isles ERO in Inverness, to say her household was registered to vote, but not by post.
If required she had to register on a website: “If you go to this website address, you find this site with the addition ‘/the-electoral-register’ added on and it is recommended by the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party as giving ‘the most useful information’.
“It does point out that under the old system, the head of the household (and I think also the head of a college etc) could register everyone who lived at that address.”
She said that was a change and she wondered if someone was taking advantage to make other alterations.
“On the past two occasions when we wanted a postal vote, we just walked into the office in Dingwall and asked, and it was all very personal and totally centred on the office in Dingwall.
“So I immediately noticed the address in Warrington and was very surprised and concerned. I now note the website address is a gov.uk one which seems very wrong.
“It is also confusing as the info on the back of the form tells you to send it back to your local ERO, addresses listed at the bottom, and makes no mention at all of the enclosed, addressed envelope.
“It does say that ‘a Freepost envelope is included in your postal ballot pack’.”
This is the only mention of an envelope on the form and it seems reasonable to think that it could also be used to return a vote – at the very least it’s confusing and raises some questions.
“It does not mean that there will be interference in the applications for postal votes but it does mean that some are taken out of Scottish hands to be processed in England,” said Grant.
“It looks like another power grab, removing control from the excellently run registration offices in Scotland. Does anybody have further information on this? I think it is really worrying and hope you can get to the bottom of it.”
We did try but, alas, the ERO in Inverness did not answer our query, despite claiming its mailbox was monitored during working hours.
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