Council apologises after failing to count more than 6,500 general election votes

21 comments

1. Article contents:

   *By Timothy Sigsworth, 17 Jul 2024 – 10:05PM BST*

   A Labour-run London council has apologised after it failed to count more than 6,500 votes at the general election.

   Wandsworth council blamed “a spreadsheet issue” for missing 6,558 votes when it announced that Fleur Anderson, the Labour MP, had retained her Putney seat on July 4.

   The local authority’s error, which meant 13 per cent of all ballots cast in the seat were not included in official results, was only uncovered on Wednesday when Conservative councillors noticed that the declared results had been quietly changed on the council’s website.

   The missed votes did not affect the outcome of the election, with the order in which the candidates finished remaining the same. 

   But the error has sparked fury among Conservative councillors, whose party had led the south-west London council from 1978 until 2022.

   **‘Council needs to explain itself’**

   Cllr Aled Richard-Jones, the Tory opposition leader, said Labour needed to take responsibility for the “fiasco”, adding: “In any democracy, people need to have confidence their votes will be counted.

   “Wandsworth residents deserve urgent clarification about how an error of this magnitude could have occurred, why it wasn’t detected at the time and the steps the council is taking to ensure this can never happen again. Above all, the secrecy surrounding this needs to stop, and the council needs to explain itself.”

   Mr Richard-Jones later accused the Labour chairman of the scrutiny committee of refusing to allow discussion of the error at a meeting on Wednesday night.

   A statement on Wandsworth council’s website said: “We acknowledge a spreadsheet issue that resulted in not all the properly counted and allocated votes being included in the announcement on the night in the Putney election count for the general election 2024.

   “This was identified, and the figures on this page have been updated. This did not affect the result or the order of the candidates. While we are confident this was an isolated incident, we are taking this opportunity to review processes with a particular focus on spreadsheet procedures.”

   **Total turnout increases from 59pc to 68pc**

   According to the updated results, Ms Anderson won 24,113 votes, up from 20,952, and a majority of 12,488 rather than the 10,941 originally declared. The total turnout increased from 59 per cent to 68 per cent.

   Lee Roberts, the Conservative candidate, received 11,625 votes rather than the 10,011 first announced, and Kieren McCarthy, the Liberal Democrat candidate, saw his total increase from 5,189 to 5,943.
   The Greens’ Fergal McEntee saw his votes increased from 3,182 to 3,721, and Reform UK’s Peter Hunter was up from 2,681 to 3,070. Heiko Khoo, of the Workers Party, received 491 votes not 433, and Felix Burford-Connole of Rejoin EU won 332 not 289.

   A spokesman for Wandsworth council said: “The acting returning officer has apologised to all candidates and agents.”

2. Not failing to count, editing vote number after the fact, and trying to keep it hidden.

3. What the jeff?? This CANNOT happen in the UK. This demands an urgent enquiry!

4. This isn’t good as every counts even if its a vote for the losing candidates

5. And no, this doesn’t invalidate the election. The result as declared is final unless a court overturns it, which they won’t because the missing votes wouldn’t have changed the outcome.

6. Oops but Id be more concerned if it swung any of our beloved FPTP seats system

7. >The local authority’s error, which meant 13 per cent of all ballots cast in the seat were not included in official results, was only uncovered on Wednesday when Conservative councillors noticed that the declared results had been quietly changed on the council’s website.

   I know it doesn’t change the results at all, but that’s completely fucked. People who run elections shouldn’t be doing this kind of sneaky shit.

8. It’s an unacceptable mistake. Luckily it had no bearing on the result in the constituency but yeah this cannot happen.

9. The labour run council apologises? I’m not sure why but I always assumed the counts were organised, and done by some independent body.

10. Mistakes happen, and they’ve accounted for it in the result; but there’s no need to try and brush it under the carpet like this.

    Would’ve been much better off just emailing all the candidates and agents, explaining the situation, and that the result is the same.

    Now we’re going to have conspiracy bollocks while Hanlon’s Razor falls to the wayside.

11. How on Earth did this one happen. The first part is to validate the number of ballots so they must have known from the off that it was wrong but kept going.

12. Wandsworth? As in the same constituency of HMP Wandsworth prison where the incident happened? Funny coincidence lol

13. I would be outraged if it meant labor lost but since it’s Torys offended and it’s the Torys fault too AND it’s the Torys saying labour needs to take accountability.

    Like bro you ran the country so bad even if the people did want you to win, you’d lose.

14. Wandsworth Labour run council = work shy unionists ….

15. Absolutely unbelievable that we are made to carry IDs to prove who we are in case of voter fraud and yet this occurs.

    It’s luck rather than judgement that the outcome was affected and as much as I can’t stand the Tories I think they are right to be asking how this happened.

16. It reads like they were managing this on excel. Pathetic. 

17. Genuine question, if this would have changed the result would the rightful MP automatically be instated, or would there be a byelection?

18. The chief executive of the council usually acts as the returning officer for the election. They are legally responsible for the way the election is carried out.

    Once the result is declared it is [classed as final and can’t be changed](https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/guidance-returning-officers-administering-local-government-elections-england/verification-and-count/count/declaring-results).

    The election result at the council where I worked was declared wrongly and the chief executive was either sacked or resigned.

19. To the people saying that it doesn’t matter because the resulting candidate order doesn’t change:

    Public funds are allocated to opposition parties (so-called [Short money](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Money)) according to how many votes they get. £42.82 for every 200 votes gained by the party. More than 20p per vote per year. [[How I learned this](https://mastodon.social/@KimSJ/112727110679498263).]

    (This means that it’s often a good idea to vote for your favourite non-independent candidate even if you know they’re going to lose.)

20. But our friends in the GOP say this is how to conduct elections properly!

21. This is absolutely insane. How is this even possible in 2024. Fuck me, what a clown show.