Barnet polling stations chaos: Voters 'turned away' after mayoral election list blunder

Mix-up: Polling booths in Barnet are affected
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Mark Chandler5 May 2016

Voters in a large swathe of north London have complained of a major mix-up at polling booths for the mayoral election, with people being denied a vote and told to try again later.

In an issue affecting every one of its 155 polling stations, people in Barnet arrived this morning to find their names did not feature on the staff's list of registered voters and were turned away.

While the issue was resolved, Barnet Council, which has so far been unable to say how many people were affected or why stations had incomplete lists, advised residents to bring their polling cards with them.

By 10.30am, more than three hours after voting started, updated registers had been delivered to polling stations and people were able to cast their ballot as normal.

A council spokesman said: “All the updated electoral registers are now in place and people can vote as normal.

"We are advising people who were unable to vote this morning to return again before the polling stations close if at all possible.

"We apologise for the problems we have experienced."

Polling Day - London Mayoral Elections

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The council later advised: “Anyone who attended a polling station in Barnet this morning, and was turned away and therefore could not vote, and was unable to return due to work reasons, may be able to use an emergency proxy vote.

“They will need to complete an application form on our website and return it by 5pm today."

Jess Hall, 31, said she turned up just after 7am to a polling station in Friern Barnet Lane but was unable to vote as she did not appear on the list.

She said: "Several people there were already having problems and weren't on the list at all."

Ms Hall, a technology worker, said: "Basically everyone was told to wait but the staff couldn't get hold of anybody on the phone. They were telling everybody to come back tonight which I can't do."

She said: "It's just a complete fiasco and people were getting quite cross. There were queues of people building, waiting to vote.

"The presiding officer was in a complete and utter panic."

The Chief Rabbi and his wife were among others turned away from a polling station in Barnet. Ephraim Mirvis was said to be "disappointed" as he is flying to Amsterdam for a visit to the Jewish Community Centre later and will be unable to vote.

Labour councillor Arjun Mittra described the scenes at his ward of East Finchley as "appalling".

He said: "It's across the borough. They appear to have sent a wrong version of the electoral roll to all the polling stations.

"There are a lot of people who arrived early, a lot of people who arrived at 7am to vote because they aren't coming back later."

He said staff at the Finchley Youth Theatre polling station had told him they would now be accepting votes from people who brought their polling card or a form of ID with them in a bid to solve the problem.

But he said: "We must have had dozens of people at the polling stations who were turned away and were very angry. We don't know what caused it. God knows why they haven't checked before."

He added: "I think it's absolutely outrageous people are being denied their right to vote. How Barnet could let this happen is mind-boggling."

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