Diane welcomes call to modernise elections but says investigation must go further
Diane has welcomed today’s call by the Electoral Commission for the electoral system to be modernised, but says they must look further into who is responsible for the chaotic scenes on May 6.
A report released today by the Electoral Commission today, confirms that one third of people were unhappy with the way the poll was run, and that the system urgently needs to be modernised before any further elections take place.
But the report, which was commissioned following chaotic scenes in constituencies like Hackney, does not offer any explanation or apology to those who were unable to vote.
Diane lodged a complaint with Hackney’s Returning Officer after queues of people were turned away in her constituency without having the opportunity to cast their vote.
Diane said:
“The turn-out in my constituency this year was the highest since 1992 and the polling stations were simply unable to cope. There were queues at 7am which has never happened before in Hackney in any of the six general elections I have contested.
Hundreds of voters were turned away in my constituency despite having joined queues long before 10pm. This does not include the untold numbers of people who saw the queues and decided against voting.
There was a complete lack of organisation despite warnings from polling stations that they were seeing more voters than they could deal with.
The system does urgently need to be modernised to prevent this happening again, but there also needs to be some acknowledgment and apology from the Commission to my constituents who were denied their democratic right to vote.”
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