Chislehurst woman 'misses out' on postal vote for General Election

A Chislehurst woman hoping to vote in the General Election via post says she failed to receive her ballot papers in time despite applying “before the deadline”.

On Tuesday, June 3, Royal Mail faced backlash from Conservative politician Kevin Hollinrake after it was reported some people would not receive their ballot papers in time for polling day on Thursday.

Janet Wertli has lived in Zurich, Switzerland, for around 11 years, having previously resided in Hong Kong, Singapore, New York and Chislehurst.

She applied for a postal vote, but has yet to receive it so will be unable to cast her vote for the Liberal Democrats in time for the General Election.

“I applied for it just before the deadline which was around June 18 because I’m registered in Bromley for voting in Eltham and Chislehurst,” the 54-year-old housewife said.

“I kept watching the Bromley website to see when they were posting them out because I was in Scotland over the weekend, so the idea was that I could, of course, take it with me to the UK, post it when I was there and it would definitely arrive in time.”

She said organisation surrounding postal voting should have been better.

“It’s not the first time we’ve had an election in the UK and it’s not the first time there have been postal votes and for the people who say it was such a rush to get organised, it was not,” she added.

“It’s not rocket science – we’re just sending out polling cards.

The Eltham and Chislehurst constituency is the responsibility of the Royal Borough of Greenwich.

A spokesperson from Greenwich Council said: “We encourage overseas voters to apply for their postal votes early, or register for a proxy vote, to allow enough time for airmail to arrive and be sent back.

“In this instance, Ms Wertli applied for a postal vote from an international address around four weeks after the General Election was announced. Unfortunately, we cannot control postal or airmail delays.”