Agenda item

A report to inform the committee of the results of the independent enquiry into the problems which occurred in the Warden Hill ward during the local elections on 3 May 2012.  Marie Rosenthal, the author of the report, will be in attendance to answer any questions Members may have on the report.  

A report of the investigating officer, Marie Rosenthal, to Andrew North, Chief Executive and Returning Officer for Cheltenham Borough Council, had been circulated with the agenda. The report documented the findings of an investigation into ballot paper issue error at St Christopher’s Church polling station, Warden Hill ward, Cheltenham during the May 2012 local elections. A complaint was made by an Elector who had noticed that the Poll Clerk at that polling station had written her unique voter number on the back of her ballot paper before handing it to her.  An investigation had been commissioned by the Returning Officer and concluded that a combination of human error and failures by the polling station staff at the St Christopher’s Church Hall polling station caused the error.  The report made a number of recommendations for staff training arrangements and more effective use of Polling station inspectors intended to prevent a reoccurrence of such an error in the future. The investigating officer concluded that this was a serious matter where up to a quarter of the voters had been disenfranchised. She assured members that the procedures operated by the council met best practice but there was always a risk that human error would cause a problem.  In this case all the safeguards in place did not trap the error but once it was identified, immediate steps were taken to correct it.  She was confident that implementation of the recommendations in the report would manage this risk in the future.

Members were concerned that members of the public had queried the practice of writing the voter number on the back of the ballot paper earlier in the day but on each occasion had been assured by officers that they were following the right procedures. They asked whether these queries had been recorded and why the matter had not been raised with the inspector or the elections office.

The investigating officer acknowledged that there had been queries from the public earlier in the day and that officers were of the view that they were absolutely right in what they were doing. They had rung the elections office regarding other queries but had not asked for clarification on this particular procedure. She advised that the presiding officer in the polling station did maintain a log but it tended to be used for recording issues relating to the premises. It could be used to record queries from the public. The inspector usually visited polling stations twice during the day to pick up postal votes and would be on hand to answer any questions.  On this occasion the matter of ballot papers was not raised with the inspector on their visits. 

Councillor Regan, as the ward member for Warden Hill, was invited to speak by the chair. She questioned why all four officers had attended the same training and still made this mistake.  She also questioned why the form used to record voter numbers was not being used.

The investigating officer assured members that the ‘corresponding numbers list’ was being used to tick off check voter numbers as the public arrived. She had received feedback from the polling staff that they did not enjoy the training and were quite critical of it and one member of the polling staff had arrived late.

Members suggested that the training needed to be more rigorous and include staff acting out various scenarios rather than just the demonstrations. Possibly there should be a test at the end which staff had to pass.

The investigating officer thought this was a good idea but did highlight that it was often a struggle to find the necessary number of staff for an election, in Cheltenham's case this was about 800. In the forthcoming elections in November for the police and crime commissioner, there would need to be training in transferable voting and the option of a test had been considered but there was still doubt about the practicality. 

Andrew North, speaking as the Returning Officer, emphasised that the running of the election was his personal responsibility.  This had been a serious occurrence and he would be actioning all the recommendations in the report to ensure that a similar error would not happen again. He said that the training was critical and he had personally attended some of the sessions. He acknowledged that the style of the current training might not suit everyone so this would be reviewed.  He welcomed the suggestion from members. He did not see anything unsurmountable in the more interactive demonstrations suggested and would consider the option of a test. Regarding the third recommendation in the report, the investigating officer had already contacted the Electoral Commission and they had agreed to review the text but unfortunately it was too late for the latest print run.

The chair thanked the investigating officer for a very good report and for her attendance at the meeting.

Resolved that the Returning Officer be recommended to action the following additional recommendation to those in the  report:

That a register of significant queries and complaints raised by members of the public is maintained at each polling station and a procedure is in place to escalate these queries with the elections office and/or the inspector.