VOTE by post if you can and help keep May elections covid-safe. 

That’s the message from local politicians after the government announced that polls will go ahead this spring, despite the ongoing pandemic. 

On Monday, Constitution Minister Chloe Smith told the House of Commons that the vote, planned for Thursday, May 6, would include borough and parish elections as well as the Police and Crime Commmissioner. 

This should have taken place last year, but they were delayed due to the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. 

“Safe and secure elections are the cornerstone of our democracy. The government has long been clear that there should be a very high bar for delay,” she said. 

Under the government’s Delivery Plan, residents will still be able to vote in person or appoint a proxy. The rules will be tweaked to allow people to request a proxy up to 5pm on polling day if they have to self-isolate. 

Those attending a polling station will be asked to bring their own pen or pencil to mark the ballot paper and enhanced social distancing measures, including limiting numbers of people within a polling station and installing plastic screens will be in place.

Postal votes remain unchanged, and residents should apply as early as possible to receive one.

Votes must still be counted as soon as possible, but Wokingham Borough Council is currently planning to conduct counts from Friday, May 6 in the daytime, rather than overnight as is traditional. 

Campaigning will be allowed, but door knocking and leafleting will not be allowed while the country is in lockdown. The government intends to publish further guidance closer to the time. 

Council leader John Halsall (Conservative, Ruscombe and Remenham) said that the UK election process differed from countries that used electronic counting methods, such as the United States. 

“Our process is about these bits of paper being handled in the polling booth, then they are separated, scrutinised, checked, double checked, scrutinised and verified. 

“Handing those bits of paper from one person to another in itself is a risk.

“There are enormous advantages to postal voting, it means that the problems with polling booths are lessened, just by the feature of fewer volumes (of people) in them. 

“But a lot of our residents feel that we fought two world wars to defend outright to vote and they see it as a matter of pride going down to the polling booth. In these circumstances, that’s potentially unsafe, so we’ll do everything we can to mitigate it, such as take your own pencil. 

“With the best will in the world, where you’ve got a lot of traffic, you create a risk.”

He called on residents to consider voting by post, even as a one-off for this year’s elections. 

“If we’re going to hold elections in May, we must make them safe. Safety is enhanced by people postal voting, and not going to the polls. This enhances safety not only for the staff, but also for residents.

“While I think we should be moving away from postal voting generally, and encouraging people coming to polling with identity and such like but on this occasion, we just don’t have any options. 

“This is the best option.”

This view was echoed by Liberal Democrat leader, Cllr Lindsay Ferris (Twyford).

“I think the safest thing is postal votes,” he said. “We did a postal vote campaign last summer. We put out lots and lots of letters suggesting they did this, and submitting it (to the council) rather than just returning it to a political party. 

“I think that anyone who feels that it’s not safe (to go to a polling station) should have a postal vote.”

He added that proxy votes by another family member was also worth considering. 

“I think a combination of postal and proxy voting is the safest way, but hopefully by May we should have the ability to go into a polling station and socially distance. And if they do, they they need to get the message out that they need to take their own pen or pencil.”

Cllr Ferris also said: “I think it’s too early to tell how safe the elections are going to be. It’s going to be up to individual people to decide whether they do go to a polling station.”

Cllr Andy Croy, the Labour leader (Bulmershe and Whitegates), who said that going to a polling station would be a bit like going to a supermarket. 

“There’s going to lots of face masks, lots of sanitiser, there will be screens, lots of spacing and lots of queueing. 

“There will be the small risk of either catching covid or spreading it, so people need to decide what they want to do mall risk of either catching covid or spreading it, so people need to decide what they want to do – vote early safely. 

“Does it mean that if it’s dangerous enough to require a postal vote, why shouldn’t we delay it?”

Cllr Halsall added that at this moment in time, he didn’t know if the government would supply funding to cover the additional costs, and that the count would be affected. 

“There are three issues: safety, security and speed. What we’ll be doing first of all is putting the safety of our staff paramount, which means that the other two issues will be compromised. 

“It will not be possible to hold overnight counts safely, nor will it be possible to expect that everything can be counted on the Friday. 

“The probability is that we will be looking at between three and five days of counts.”

The reason was due to the number of people: in a normal election, there are 18 counting tables with five people on them, in addition to the candidates, their agents, friends and councillors, as well as press including the Wokingham.Today team and the BBC. 

“We cannot contemplate that, it’s just not possible,” Cllr Halsall said. 

And he said that in his personal opinion, the poll would have been better held later in the year when more people had been vaccinated. 

This view was echoed by Cllr Croy, who suggested that the polls could still be pushed back even though the government had stated they would be held in May. 

“Kids were going back to school in January until they weren’t, so who knows? Who believes anything that the government says anymore?

“If they are pushed back to June, July or September I would not be surprised. 

“If something new happens in terms of a new variant of the coronavirus in the next few months, of course the elections will be postponed.”