Lords vote against postal ballot bill
The House of Lords has blocked plans to introduce postal voting across four regions of Britain in this year’s European parliamentary elections.
Peers voted 169 to 111 against the proposals yesterday, during the report stage of the European Parliamentary and Local Elections (Pilots) Bill.
The Lords also voted 157-110 to require postal voters to submit a witnessed declaration of identity with their ballot.
The government must ensure the bill becomes law by May in order to allow the all-postal voting trials to go ahead. Peers are calling for the pilot scheme to be run in just two regions.
Peers from both the Tory and Lib Dem benches insist that the trials for the June 10th elections for councils and the European parliament should take place in the east Midlands and the north-east, but not in the north-west or Yorkshire and Humberside.
Meanwhile, town hall staff running the local elections are urging the Lords and the government to break the deadlock over postal voting. Members of the Association of Electoral Administrators are concerned that authorities covering millions of electors do not know what voting system they will be using just three months before the elections.
The government originally announced all postal ballots in the East Midlands and North East European Parliament regional constituencies and associated councils. But, last month it added the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber.
Under the pilot scheme, voters will be sent ballot papers to return by post, saving them from going to a polling station.
