From the Guardian:
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it was impossible to confirm or deny the full scale of the problem among service personnel and their families. "We are getting anecdotal evidence coming through from political parties and from the media," a spokesman said.
From the Herald:
Meanwhile, postal voting paperwork for almost 25% of Britain's frontline soldiers has arrived too late for them to take part in the election, according to military sources involved in organising access to ballots for units scattered from Basra to Benbecula.
Despite a promise by Tony Blair two weeks ago that he would "sort out" electoral problems to enable all service personnel to vote, the forms began to arrive in Iraq only on Tuesday, and in Cyprus and Northern Ireland yesterday, leaving troops no chance to complete and return them in time.
A handful serving in Iraq have now sent their voting forms back to the UK with colleagues returning on leave on RAF flights, but neither the Army nor the Ministry of Defence has made any formal arrangement to collect or forward ballots.
The average delay in mail from the Middle East is 10 days. There are 8800 troops in Iraq and Kuwait, 11,500 in Northern Ireland and 3200 in Cyprus from an overall total of just over 100,000 men and women in the Army.
The failure compounds the scandal revealed by The Herald two weeks ago that the MoD had potentially disenfranchised all 200,000 members of the armed forces by not delivering advisory leaflets to their units.
If the system is broken and no-one complains - either through official channels or to the Electoral Commission - then the same problem will (conveniently) arise in another four years.
Even the Russians look after the democratic rights of their Armed Forces better than the UK does!
