Democracy denied

Thoughts on results to follow, but I am more angry that I was denied the vote. This the text of the letter I sent to Lambeth today:

I am writing to complain in the strongest possible terms about the election on Thursday in which I was unable to vote due to your failure to register my wife and me.

I had diligently filled in my tedious registration form, having meditated on postal voting, and then sent it on to you. To answer your inevitable question, I always do this: I have voted in every election since I became eligible after 1997, and before I could vote, I spent time campaigning and leafleting. I never forget to send them.

I became a little concerned when no polling cards arrived, so emailed your electoral services department on Tuesday. Clearly manning such a service is not a priority so close to an election for you; raising the question what it is for during this time. Perhaps they were busy going through the unopened letters containing registration forms.

What they clearly were not doing (and should have been doing) was checking the register against either last year’s or the council tax roll. For we did vote last year and I note that the council tax system does not need updating on an annual basis. A cursory check – and given that there are only just over 100,000 households in Lambeth this would take mere minutes – would reveal that we are still resident, still paying, and still expecting to vote.

Given this, I would now ask you to write to me explain why you lost my form, failed to take any action to check my continued residence, and in doing so deprived me of my vote. I expect a prompt response within the next fortnight. Should you treat this request with the contempt that you appear to have treated my attempts, I will be forced to withhold my council tax as a matter of course.