Hundreds of thousands of British citizens were left unable to vote around the world and across the UK after registering to vote by post.
Ex-pats from all over the world have complained that they did not receive their ballot papers in time to vote in the general election.
Speaking in the Independent, Brian Cave, 82, an expat in south-eastern France, has been compiling a dossier of evidence of the problem which he plans to send to the Electoral Commission. He said reports have come in that standard UK postage was used on ballot papers that arrived too late to be sent back by the close of voting at 10pm last night.
“I have received complaints from people about the non-reception of voting papers from as far apart as California, Massachusetts, Norway, France and Spain,” said Mr Cave, who runs a blog supporting the rights of Britons overseas.
He said: “If the numbers of voters who complain that they were unable to vote because of this management error exceed the margin by which the supposed ‘winner’ gained the seat, then the election should be declared void and rerun.”
Anne Casey, a Labour voter who lives in Saint Même les Carrières, Charente, France, belongs to a web forum of English-speaking women there. She said that around half of the 200 members she spoke to reported that they did not receive any papers despite being successfully registered.
“That means that 50 per cent of us who have bothered to do our civic duty have been denied our voice and our vote. Emmeline Pankhurst must be spinning in her grave,” she said. “I’m very angry.”
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