Is “Happy voting!” really the proper way to close an email announcing a Council By-election? Anyway…
A seat has become vacant in the Stonebridge Ward following the death of Councillor Dorman Long. A by-election will be held on Thursday, 13 September 2007 to elect a new representative.
The by-election gives the Lib Dems another opportunity to win a seat - but will they win it? I doubt it. Stonebridge ward is a Labour heartland - you only have to look at the votes cast in the 2006 Local Election to see that… Winning this single seat will not change the overall political balance of Brent Council: The Lib Dems would need to win a few more by-elections or benefit from defections (not for the first time in Brent’s recent political history) in order to be in a position to leave the alliance with the Conservatives and lead a majority administration....
The 2007 Electoral Canvass is about to start. Once again we must all update our details on the Electoral Register.Failure to do so can lead to a fine of up to £1,000. Now thatis what I call an incentive!
Electoral Canvassing - Your Questions Answered.
Posted after receiving a notification from Brent Council Electoral Services department.
Last weeks' (24th May) KTimes carried two stories about potential legal challenges to the results of the Brent Council elections. I don’t know what is happening with the query about the election of Cllr Pawan Gupta in Dudden Hill but I do have some news on the challenge to the count in Queen’s Park.
I understand that Brent Council have written to all the candidates in the Queen’s Park ward acknowledging the concern and the reasoning behind the querry raised by Shahrar Ali....
What news have I on the ‘missing votes’ in Queen’s Park? Well, I know that all the candidates have been written to by Shahrar Ali who has appraised them of his calculations and his investigations with Brent Council. I imagine that the next steps will be to petition the Returning Officer through the High Court as the Officer does not have the power to choose to recount the ballot. More info as and when I’ve digested the papers from the Law Courts…...
The suggestion that a number of votes went uncounted at the local election is based on what was witnessed by Shahrar Ali on the night. There is no way that Shahrar could have seen all the ballot papers in for the Queen’s Park ward, but he did witness the first sort and count of the block votes and also the count of the ‘splits’ and the paper with unallocated votes....