As 61,353 postal voting packs start dropping through letter boxes across Edinburgh for the forthcoming Scottish Parliamentry Election and the Alternative Vote referendum, postal voters are being reminded to read the instructions carefully otherwise their vote might not be counted.
When voting by post, voters need to fill in a form accompanying their ballot paper, giving their signature and date of birth. As a security measure, these are matched against the signature and date of birth the voter provided when they applied to vote by post.
Sue Bruce Returning Officer for the Edinburgh constituencies said: “Postal voting is growing in popularity as a convenient way to have your say in elections. But at every election, some postal votes are invalid, because the voter either forgot to sign the postal voting statement or wrote down the date they filled it in, rather than their date of birth.
“We’ve included a guide to completing a postal ballot in the pack, so please do take the time to read it and provide the right information so that we can count your vote. We need to receive postal votes before polls close at 10pm on 5 May.”
The Electoral Commission, the independent elections and referendum watchdog, has sent every household in Scotland an information booklet on the Scottish Parliamentary elections and the referendum on the UK Parliamentary voting system.
Anyone who has not received a booklet can download it at www.aboutmyvote.co.uk or call 0800 3 280 280.