THE POLLING cards have been posted, the ballot boxes have been dispatched, and now busy officials in Swindon are making the final preparations for the big day on Thursday.

Swindon Council faces a triple challenge – with a referendum, borough elections, and some parish elections – but staff are well on schedule as the first postal votes come in.

They have even organised extra polling stations to avoid the queues which were seen at some polling stations in the town last year.

Sally Sprason, elections manager at Swindon Council, said: “Preparations are going fine. All the ballot boxes have now been collected and all the paperwork is sorted.

“The postal votes are coming in. We haven’t got any figures yet as to how many, but a good proportion have come in already.

“Really now we are just doing the final work. Printing the paperwork, making sure everything is up together for the count, security of the ballot papers, arranging with police, doing the final checks.

“Because administratively it’s huge. You have got to make sure all the polling stations are open on time, all the polling station equipment has been delivered, and the count runs as smoothly as it can.”

Thursday will see a third of the seats on Swindon Council up for grabs, as well as the referendum on the AV electoral system for Parliament. All-out parish elections will also be held in Highworth and Wroughton.

Polling cards were sent to the 156,000 or so voters on the electoral register over the Easter holidays.

Anyone who has not received their card, they can still vote, providing they tell officials their name and address at the polling stations and show an official form of ID.

The deadline for requesting a postal vote was April 14 and the deadline for a proxy vote – where someone votes on your behalf – was on April 21.

However, if someone has been ill after April 21, they can still apply for an emergency proxy up until 5pm on polling day, providing it is counter-signed by a doctor.

This year the council has set up 92 polling stations, compared to 71 last year, to try to avoid queues that were seen last year in large wards, such as Abbey Meads.

More buildings have been acquired for the day and in some wards two polling stations have been created in the same building by splitting the register. Polling cards will show voters which station to attend.

Voting takes place between 7am and 10pm, with the counts taking place later at the Oasis Leisure Centre.

About 130 people will count the votes for the borough council election on Thursday night and about 60 people will count the votes for the referendum and parish council elections on Friday afternoon.