Agenda item

The Committee received a report which provided an update on recent Elections that had taken place since the Committee’s last meeting, namely:-

·Police and Crime Commissioner Election - 5^th May 2016

·Edenthorpe & Kirk Sandall By-Election – 5^th May 2016

·Hatfield Town Council – Dunscroft Ward By-Election – 5^th May 2016

·EU Referendum - 23^rd June 2016

·Bawtry Town Council – 30^th June 2016

·Thorne – Moorends Town Council – Thorne Town Ward – 30^th June 2016

Trina Barber, Interim Electoral Services Team Leader, summarised the salient points in relation to the outcomes of each election, including information on the receipt of ballot boxes after the close of poll, the verification and counting of ballot papers and the turnout figures in each case.

A detailed report on the EU Referendum held on 23rd June 2016 was then tabled for Members’ information (see appendix to these minutes).  The Committee noted that a high number of telephone calls were received on the day of the Referendum, which was in part due to the fact that there was a significant number of first-time voters participating in the Referendum.

In answer to a question regarding the late receipt of postal votes following the close of poll for the Referendum, Trina Barber explained that a number of late postal vote packs were always received following the close of poll.  The Elections Team kept a record of all postal votes received after close of polls and reported this back to the Electoral Commission.  She stated that it was very difficult to ascertain why postal votes had failed to be delivered on time, but stressed that these amounted to only a very small proportion of the overall number of postal votes issued.

In reply to a query from a Member as to why the 21 count tables for the Referendum had not been arranged according to Wards, Trina Barber explained that this was to enable an even distribution of ballot papers across the tables, in light of the fact that the Referendum was not a warded election.  This arrangement also enabled the postal votes to be evenly distributed across the tables.

During general discussion, Members felt that it was a credit to the Elections Team that such a large number of postal votes (61,784 issued, 54,244 returned) had been processed in the EU Referendum.  Members also praised all of the 949 staff who had been involved in the Referendum for their excellent work.

The Chair highlighted the extra burden that had been placed on the Elections Team as a result of the 11,580 duplicate registrations made by people re-registering, due to confusion amongst some electors who thought they needed to register specifically in order to vote at the EU Referendum.

In response to a question as to whether any complaints had been received on the day of the Referendum in relation to campaigning activities/material, Trina Barber confirmed that there had been very few complaints or issues to deal with.  One complaint had been received regarding a large poster on display, but the Council had not been able to take any action as the poster was situated on private property.  Staff working in polling stations had also been asked to carry out checks in every polling station in advance of polling day to ensure that any flags or bunting on display for the Queen’s 90^th birthday celebrations or the Euro 2016 football tournament had been taken down.

Scott Fawcus, Assistant Director Legal and Democratic Services, stated that it was interesting to note the comparative numbers of spoilt ballot papers in the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Election and the EU Referendum, with just 64 spoilt papers in the Referendum compared to a total of 726 rejected papers for the PCC Election.  He suggested that this was indicative of the very high level of engagement in the EU Referendum, as borne out by the turnout level of 69.56%.

After the Committee had passed on its thanks to Trina Barber and the Elections Team, and all the staff who had worked on the various elections recently, for their efforts and contributions which had resulted in all six elections being a huge success and excellent feedback being received, it was

RESOLVED to note the contents of the report and the briefing paper tabled at the meeting.