General Election: collection points open in Fife for people to get postal vote packs

Faced with Royal Mail delays over getting the vital paperwork to households, Fife Council is set to make further steps to ease concerns. It comes after it opened the doors to its Fife House headquarters in Glenrothes on Saturday, when over 200 people attended. The council said its election team was “doing its very best” to make sure everyone gets the chance to vote in Thursday’s UK poll.

All Postal vote packs were dispatched by June 26 and should have been delivered by yesterday, but it said that, nationally, systems have been really busy, and issued new advice for people still waiting.

Fife House in Glenrothes is open for members of the public to attend to have replacement postal vote packs issued right up until the deadline of 5:00pm on the day of poll. If you need a replacement email in advance to [email protected] and the council will give you a time to collect your replacement packs to avoid waiting. You can walk in but may not get your pack straight away - and you must bring ID.

From 10:00am on Wednesday (July 3), the council is also opening new collection centres for postal vote packs. They are at the The Town House, Kirkcaldy; County Buildings, Cupar and the City Chambers in Dunfermline. The council stressed these are only for the collection of postal vote packs. You have to email with appropriate ID to arrange for a replacement pack to be sent to one of the collection points.

A spokesperson said: “When we issue a replacement pack, we cancel the unique code on the vote sent to you originally, so there's no possibility of anyone voting twice. You must use your replacement pack to vote as your original pack will be cancelled if there has been a replacement ordered. Please take care to vote using the replacement pack and not the original one. Postal votes don't have to be posted back, they can be taken to any polling station on July 4, or handed in to the Returning Officer at Fife House during office hours up to the end of Thursday.

“Postal votes can also be taken by someone on your behalf as long as you comply with the rules for handing in votes. You must speak to a member of the elections team or the team at the polling station and complete a Postal Return Form if you hand postal votes in. If you just leave the envelope your vote cannot be counted.”