Over 200 Fifers flock to Fife Council HQ’s emergency opening to get postal votes

They all flocked to Fife House after Fife Council opened its Glenrothes headquarters on Saturday in a bid to tackle the growing concerns over delays by the Royal Mail getting the forms to households in time for the deadlines ahead of the July 4 poll. Fife was one of several local authorities which said there had been delays, and, in a bid to ease any issues,took emergency action at the weekend. The council said a “high volume” of people turned up.

Ken Gourlay, Returning Officer said: "We issued over 200 ballot packs. We were also able to advise people about when it’s possible to use emergency proxy voting, and to reassure others who aren’t leaving the country in the next day or so.”But he stressed: “If you're not travelling in the next couple of days, your postal pack should arrive in time to vote, we have no reason to believe otherwise. The national system has obviously been very busy and, while we expected all packs in our second despatch to have arrived by this weekend, that hasn't been the case, so we opened up today as an extraordinary measure to help those about to go away on holiday. However, it's likely most outstanding packs will arrive on Monday.

"Where we've seen people today and issued a replacement pack, we've cancelled the unique code on the vote sent to them originally, so there's no possibility of anyone voting twice. If they submit a postal vote that arrives later this week, the election scanners will reject the barcode so that it cannot be counted."

Fife Council uploaded the first batch of postal voter data on June 10 for processing and printing, to be issued by Royal Mail on the 19th. This despatch included packs for anyone who had been granted a postal vote by June 7.

Packs for people who registered for a postal vote after that date and before the deadline on June 19, were all issued via Royal Mail on Wednesday 26th for delivery at the weekend. Last Friday was the first date that councils were allowed to accept applications for replacements for lost or spoilt postal votes.

Given the number of people raising concerns, Fife Council opened its headquarters so that electoral staff could issue replacement packs for those about to travel.

The council said all packs should arrive by Monday (July 1) - if they do not, voters should email [email protected]k

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 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 and complete a Postal Return Form if you hand postal votes in. If you just leave the envelope your vote cannot be counted.