Maidstone blows £12,600 on electoral registration mistakes

Following the news that Newcastle City Council wasted £50,000 on faulty electoral registration letters which had to be reissued, Maidstone Borough Council has now also been in the news for a similar problem.

At least Maidstone’s bill was smaller at £12,600:

A total of 42,000 letters were delivered at the start of last week informing people of a new voter registration system.

But they contained an error that meant people who had opted out of receiving junk mail were told they had signed up to receive such post.

The mistake means another 42,000 letters had to be sent out again.

A council spokesman confirmed the mistake would cost £12,600 to fix.

He said: “Hands up – we got it wrong. It was a mistake in the mail merge.”

Meanwhile, I’d missed that last month Wolverhampton was in the news for making the same mistake too:

Blundering council chiefs ‘unreservedly apologised’ after a letter was sent out to 39,000 voters not on the open electoral register telling them anyone could view their personal details…

The council said it had received hundreds of complaints from furious residents since the letters were dispatched.

As too was Bedford Borough Council:

Bedford Borough Council sent out the correspondence last week which informed residents they were on the open electoral register despite previously opting out.

The error, caused by a company employed by the council called Print Image Network, left residents bombarding the council with calls and emails to ask if they were on the open register or not.

Any more?