Did you get the chance to vote?

[JessTheDog]

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! :mad:

[Centre_Expand]

No I didn't .

The postal application form on the internet is all well and good, but how many welfare internet machines are connected to printers?

When I asked the friendly scribblies if they had any forms they referred me to the internet.....

Eventually, 2 days before the election, there was an email circulated announcing that a stock of election forms had been created.

Isn't foresight a wonderful thing.

:cool:

[JessTheDog]

It is important to flag up complaints through the chain. Losing a vote in this day and age is simply disgraceful.

Would QR1000 be appropriate? The redress to be sought would be the remedy of the problem in time for the next election - local elections next year and Scottish Parliament elections in 2007.

Alternatively, a letter to the Electoral Commission may work.

It is right to point out that proxies can be used, but not everyone has access to this route or wishes to use it. It should be as simple to vote OOA as it is in the UK. The Armed Forces must provide ballot boxes and facilities at deployed units, as the Russians do!

The command chain could sit on its hands and do nothing. When I had my uniform on last, I was under the impression that this was not the done thing for such welfare matters. If the RAF can churn out 56,000 copies of AP3003 it can ensure that service personnel have the right to vote.

[kippermate]

Mrs kipper (actually an army friend of hers but I thought I'd let her take the credit) brought this up with the Under Secretary of State recently, and was told that the government appreciated the problem but, under current electorial policy, candidates do not have to inform that they are standing for election until 7 days(?) before the date of the election. Consequently, there is insufficient time to get postal votes to Servicemen overseas.

kipper

[dogstar2]

No, I have been disenfranchised by what appears to be a conveniently inefficient paper trail. Initially my local authority had lost all records of my registration certificate. After looking in another file and taking 2 days to do so they found me. I then had to fill out an online postal voter form and then send that in. They then informed me that they would be sending the postal forms out 1 week before the election. That seemed to be cutting it fine for overseas mail and the lethargic BFPO system, however I had calculated that I would just have time to vote. Unfortunately for me, however, they actually sent it to my parents' address where I was originally registered and not to the address I had placed in the correspondance address box on the form. Is it right that voting is so hard if you join the services? It did not seem this way for the Americans I work with when they voted recently. Indeed it did not seem quite so hard in previous elections.

How about an online system with a user name and PIN. I would trust that more than I trust the current paper system which has resulted in thousands being unable to vote. Who should I blame? The forces, the government or the electoral commission?:confused:

[brit bus driver]

No chance to vote in the bus driver household..................but it would be rather tenuous to blame the government for my little'uns rather spectacular chunder display for most of yesterday evening!
:yuk:

[Scud-U-Like]

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

Simply not true. I know several people whose postal ballot papers arrived in Cyprus around 25/26 April. It looks like the Herald is trying to make the news, rather than report it.

[JessTheDog]

Let's see what an inquiry comes up with.

In the meantime I would suggest that complaints are made through the chain and to the Electoral Commission, if the chain is unlikely to be sympathetic locally.

No complaints = no inquiry = no vote. The next elections are in 2006 for local government and 2007 for the Scottish Parliament, so there is not much time to get it right.

[exvicar]

But if you had all been given the chance to vote, you may have voted for a PM that would support the armed forces somewhat more than Mr Blair. That said, you will probably find that you did vote through someones squatter house in Birmingham, it is only that you didn't know it!

[cazatou]

The UK Government recently changed the rules on postal voting for British Citizens who are resident abroad and reduced the length of time that they are eligible to vote after moving abroad to 15 years.

This is despite the fact that HMG reserve the right to tax "Government Pensions" in the UK. Thus both my wife and I continue to be taxed in UK (she was in Teaching) but will lose the right to vote in the election of the Parliament that sets the level of taxation that we have to endure.

Of course if one resides in a country which does not have a dual taxation treaty with the UK you get the double whammy.

[fabs]

Scud is right, I left Iraq at the end of March having completed my voter registration the week before. The Herald is either misinformed or just plain lying.

[tonkatechie]

The problem extended to the south atlantic too - paper work for voting didn't turn up in time for it to get back, which is pretty poor considering how long we've had a presence here! Good idea about having polling stations at detached locations, but not sure how they'd cope with trying to link them to the correct constituancies though.....
Biggest annoyance is that, yet again, it's the people who are actually doing something for their country who are losing out.:*