From a correspondent:
“This is news hot from the East Devon election workers at the Knowle (today Sunday!).
They say they have had dozens of phone calls about the discrepancy between the “Instructions for voting by post” (i.e. vote ONCE only on Green ballot paper) and the Green ballot paper itself (where the instruction is to vote for the number of votes according to the number of seats).
The election worker at the Knowle is contacting all the people who left messages about the discrepancy in the instructions, to say the following action is being taken urgently:
1. A letter is being sent to all postal voters in the East Devon Constituency (NOT the Tiverton and Honiton or the Central Devon Constituencies).
2. The letter will explain that votes should be cast according to the instructions on the Green ballot paper, not according to the written “Instructions for voting by post”
3. If a person has already voted not in accordance with the instructions on the Green ballot paper, they should call Knowle and request a new ballot paper to be issued, which will be substituted for their vote already returned.”
Will the head of the instigator of this cock-up have to roll? It belongs to CEO of East Devon District Council (and Returning Officer) Mark Williams, so who knows? He got off scot-free after his appearance before the Parliamentary Commission on Voter Engagement last December where he was heavily criticised and singled out in their report for failing to do enough to register missing voters, so maybe the Teflon coating will remain – especially if the “same olds” remain in power at EDDC.
What will now happen if some people who had followed the instructions on the WHITE (wrong) paper do not cast new votes on the GREEN (correct) paper and the seat can only be decided by a handful of votes fewer than the number of incorrect postal votes for that ward?
NB: seeking clarification as to why workers state remediation letters are going out only to the “East Devon Constituency” as East Devon District Council covers THREE Parliamentary constituencies – East Devon (currently Swire), Tiverton and Honiton (currently Parish) and Mid-Devon (currently Stride). It seems unlikely that wrong instructions went out only to the “East Devon constituency” when the district elections are not governed by Parliamentary Constituency boundaries but by Local Authority boundaries which are very different.
Now, if incorrect voting instructions are confined only to the East Devon Parliamentary Constituency, that would need some explaining as separate instructions would have been produced for different areas of East Devon!
East Devon Watch 
There are c. 8700 postal voters in the District, so assuming that each mailing costs c. 70p, that will likely cost EDDC (or in other words us council tax payers) c. £6,000. So Mr Williams has wasted yet more money.
And for the record, when Mr Williams appeared before the committee he admitted that, rather than being simply “below standard” for the previous 4 years against the Electoral Commission’s doorstep canvassing performance standard, he had actually done absolutely NO doorstep canvassing because it was “not effective” in a rural district (and despite the fact that in the other rural district where he is CEO, they do undertake doorstep canvassing).
But, surprise-surprise, when he was forced to undertake doorstep canvassing as part of the move to Individual Electoral Registration this added several thousand voters to the register – so it seems it was quite effective after all.
Perhaps it is time for Mr Williams to resign as ERO and RO to concentrate on his other two jobs, and let someone more competent, and hopefully someone who values democracy rather more, do the job.
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I have just completed my postal vote, and I notice the Envelope B has windows for the postal address to show through, so you need to fold the Voting Statement and insert it so that the Returning Officer’s address shows. However, the instructions do not explain this so I wonder how many voters will fail to realise this and end up with either their own address or no address showing??
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Yet another cock up by EDDC and it surely wont be the last. Williams and his cohort Cohen should resign immediately rather than continue to rake in over inflated salaries for doing half a job.
Enough critisism has been leveled against the pair of them already and if they wont resign they should be sacked.
Cohen also investigated a complaint I made recently against a decision made by EDDC and it turns out he was the person responsible for making the decision that caused the complaint to be made!!! So murderer, judge and jury all rolled into one. “Who do you think you are kidding Mr Cohen??”
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Shouldn’t Mr Williams cough up £6,000 of his inflated salary?
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Once again, members of the public have identified an important EDDC error. You really cannot trust what some of them say.
The present Leader noticeably quiet isn’t he!
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