Extra polling station was needed to handle voters

Published: 14 May, 2010

• OUR very highly paid chief executive John Foster must accept full responsibility for the failure on polling day last week at St John’s High Vale polling station when dozens of locals were denied their right  to vote (Election chaos, May 7).
The Electoral Commission is very clear on the rules: “By law, polls must close at 10pm and any voter issued with a ballot paper by 10pm should be allowed time to cast it, but no ballot paper should be issued after 10pm.”
Any voter inside the school with a ballot paper should have been allowed to make their vote after 10pm.
Most importantly, Mr Foster should have looked at the local list of those entitled to vote and seen how the population has grown enormously in Highbury West over the last five years, by at least 1,500 new residents, and made a further polling station available.
Candidates received more than twice their usual number of votes compared to previous years.
Says the Electoral Commission: “There should have been sufficient resources allocated to ensure that everyone who wished to vote was able to do so.”
As the borough’s returning officer, Mr Foster clearly failed to note the dramatic increase in population in Highbury and failed to prepare for this by adding extra resources. And we were told by Mr Foster himself that he is really worth the £210,000 we are paying him. Is he really so sure about that now?
TIM NEWARK
Islington TaxPayers’ Alliance

• AS elections agent for Islington Green Party, I was at the Conewood Street polling station in Highbury West ward on Thursday night when about 40 people were prevented from voting.
Emma Dixon, Green Party parliamentary candidate and a barrister, tried to negotiate with the returning officer and Islington Council’s lawyer to allow those inside the polling station by 10pm to vote. It was clear from their reaction that they were not just unprepared for the situation, but simply unaware until we called them that there was even a problem – despite the huge queues that had been building up at Conewood Street during the day.
But all these people could have legally voted if ballot papers had been issued to them before 10pm (as the Electoral Commission recommends and as was done in Lewisham). In short, this was a shambles, and we call on the council’s chief executive, John Foster, to answer the following questions:
• Why were polling station staff and the returning officer unaware of the flexibility permitted under electoral law in issuing ballot papers?
• This was the first time in more than 50 years that a local and general election had coincided in Islington. Was staffing at polling stations therefore increased from the 2006 local election?
•Did staffing at Highbury West polling stations reflect the huge increase in voter numbers in the ward since 2006?
• Why was there no communication between polling stations and the returning officer during the day about the pressure on polling stations in Highbury West?
• Were additional staff – or even just more copies of electoral registers – available to be deployed in the event of a large turnout?
• How much money from the election budget was spent on the “Islington counts” advertising campaign, and how many additional polling   station staff could that have paid for?
The chief executive as returning officer has a duty to ensure that people can exercise their fundamental right to vote.
MICHAEL COFFEY
Elections agent, Islington Green Party