A BALLOT bungle that gave thousands of votes too many to Conservative candidates meant that one Highworth councillor won a seat by mistake.

Provisional new results tallied up at Swindon Magistrates Court yesterday revealed that errors made during the night of the local elections in May resulted in Coun Pauline Webster getting re-elected with 3,112 votes when in fact she only received 727 voteS.

 

READ MORE: Full list of provisional recount results of Highworth poll

Coun Julie Murphy received 3,118 votes originally but actually had 732, only five more than Ms Webster but just enough to keep her seat.

Coun Alan Bishop received 3,394 votes instead of 1,009, Coun Steve Weisinger received 3,304 instead of 919 and Coun Lynn Vardy received 3,273 instead of 889.

Independent Kim Barber's total of 862, later revised to 863, should have been enough for her to get elected in the first place but she lost out because of the incorrectly-inflated vote counts of other candidates.

Ms Barber will take her deserved seat once the results are made official by the High Court within the next few weeks.

Highworth mayor Julia Bishop said: “We are very sorry to lose Pauline, who has been an incredibly wonderful councillor for years.

“We are deeply saddened by the upset this mistake has caused but we are pleased that it’s been sorted and happy with the results and we will work with them.”

The counting confusion affected Labour candidates to a lesser but still significant extent, with Jamie Cope receiving 289 votes too many and Gerald Edwards receiving 288 votes more than he should have.

The four independent candidates had a far smaller margin for error, receiving the same amount or as much as 12 votes too many. They now come out on top of the tables in terms of ballots cast, above Conservatives and Labour alike.

Coun Keith Smith organised the High Court petition which pushed for a recount to be carried out. He said: “I’m very pleased that we now have the right result, it was very close in the end and the recount has made a difference.

"We were initially advised that, though the numbers were wrong, the right people had been elected - but this was not the case.

"Highworth residents should be satisfied that in September, the council will be the one they actually voted for."

HIGHWORTH VOTE RE-COUNT: The story so far...

It has been speculated that block votes, where a voter gives one vote to each candidate from the same political party, may have been counted as 10 votes per Conservative candidate and three votes per Labour candidate instead.

This led to more votes being counted than the 2,477 ballots cast by the Highworth electorate.

Swindon Borough Council’s election returning officer Susie Kemp said: “I didn’t get it right on the evening of the election. That falls squarely on my shoulders and I take full responsibility.

“I’m really grateful to this team who have given up their day jobs for a morning to do the recount.

"I know this has been a difficult time for the councillors and candidates so I would like to apologise again.

“This is a big lesson learned and things were put into practice for the European elections and will be again in future to make sure we are never ever in this position again.”

A date for the High Court session which will make these provisional recounted results official has not yet been set but is expected to be later this month or early September.

FULL LIST: Provisional recounted results of Highworth ballots