17/05/11…Returning officer from outside to review ‘shambolic’ election

FOLLOWING criticism and a vote of No Confidence in South Oxfordshire’s Returning Officer, he has announced that an outside authority’s RO will be brought in to conduct a review into what went wrong.

SODC’s Chief Executive and Returning Officer, David Buckle, was criticised from several quarters for errors, omissions and the mishandling of May 5’s local elections and AV referendum, including a Vote of No Confidence by Thame Town Council.

Some residents were turned away from the polling booths on May 5, and there were problems with postal votes being sent out late and to the wrong addresses. Other errors included sending out inadequately sized, pre-paid envolopes for the return of postal and proxy votes.

Chief Executive of South Oxfordshire District Council and Returning Officer David Buckle says a thorough review will be carried out.

He has been reported (by Mix ’96) as having written to the political leaders at both SODC and Thame Town Council to tell them of a review into the way the referendum was conducted and the 96 separate elections that took place on Thursday, May 5, across South and Vale: “.. to see what improvements we could have made.”

He has promised to bring in an experienced returning officer from elsewhere to carry out it out, which is likely to take a number of weeks.

David Buckle then says that he intends to publish the results and present them to each council’s scrutiny committee, and that until that is complete he does not intend to make any further statement.

He has however, thanked all the people involved in the election this year, the election team, the polling staff and vote counters for all the effort they put in on May 5 and 6.