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By Jane Watkinson
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My complaint regarding the misleading South Yorkshire PCC postal vote instructions…

Friday, April 29, 2016 9:24

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(Before It's News)

When trying to complete my ballot for the upcoming South Yorkshire PCC election on the 30th of October, I had a moment of panic thinking that I HAD to have a second choice. Given my options for this second choice were UKIP, Tories and the English Democrats the idea of putting an X next to any of those hate driven parties was a pretty sickly feeling. After digging around and eventually finding a couple of blogs written about it I realised that I didn’t actually have to have a second choice.

I really shouldn’t have to research online and find out from bloggers whether or not I need to vote for two parties in a PCC election. This shows how badly designed the postal vote is. I consider myself to be one of those people who would be described as being very politically active and it stumped me; I know of others I would describe this way and they were also confused by it and so I imagine it is something that has thrown quite a few people off and potentially distorted the voting so far.

Therefore, I decided to send a complaint through the Sheffield City Council and help raise awareness of this. This doesn’t mean I am blaming the council, it means I think they are the best people to help bring it to more people’s attention and hopefully stop it from happening again and even make more people aware of it before they send their postal vote in or vote on the 30th. I’ve included a copy of the complaint below:

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to express concern regarding the wording used on the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner postal ballot paper and the accompanying instructions. The instructions given and also the wording on the actual ballot paper made it look like you had to have a second choice and that also this second choice had to be different to your first.

After researching this online, I found it not to be the case but I know of people who are heavily involved in politics that did think the wording used in the postal ballot meant that they had to vote for two different candidates and thus did so despite not wanting to.

I recommend in future it says clearly on the ballot paper that you have the option of two choices but that you do not need to have two choices. Currently, such wording makes it look like you have to pick two, and frankly given that my other choices were the Conservatives, English Democrats and UKIP the idea of ever voting for any of those turns my stomach.

I hope you make the necessary changes to the postal ballot wording in time for future elections. I imagine the wording is on the ballot for those voting in polling stations on the 30^th of October too, so if there is any way to make it clear to voters on this day across polling stations that they do not have to vote twice that would be really useful.

Kind Regards,

Jane Watkinson

Update – 24th of October:

The response to my PCC ballot complaint is very interesting – looks like once again it’s a central government made problem:

“I have contacted our Electoral Services and they have informed me that the wording used and that used on instructions in the polling stations is stipulated by the Police & Crime Commissioner Election Order 2012 and so we have no power to use different wording.”

The act is here (page 86-88 is relevant for instance, providing copies of the ballots): http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2012/1917/pdfs/uksi_20121917_en.pdf

Update – 27th of October

I was on BBC Radio Sheffield this morning talking about the problems with the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner ballot instructions for the election this Thursday. If you fancy a listen, it starts at around 36 minutes and 45 seconds in: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p028lmfh