FIRST MINISTER John Swinney has expressed concerns over reports that thousands of Scottish households have yet to receive their postal votes in what he called a “deeply unacceptable situation”.
The SNP leader has previously stated his worry over the timing of the General Election when it was called by Rishi Sunak as it coincided with the Scottish school holidays.
Concerns have now been raised that many Scots have yet to receive their postal ballots and are worried they will not get them in time to cast their votes.
Swinney has said he is “troubled” by the situation but did add he was not surprised by the delay.
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Swinney told the BBC: “If I take you back to the early days of the election, the day the Prime Minister called the election, I expressed concerns about it taking place during the Scottish school summer holidays.
“Various people criticised me for making that comment, but here we are. Just as I feared, people are leaving Scotland to go on their holidays, have applied for their postal vote, but haven’t got them.
“It’s a deeply unacceptable situation that people will be disenfranchised because the election has been called when it is inconvenient.”
According to the National Records of Scotland’s data from December 2023, 22.2% of the electorate in Scotland vote by post, which is more than 888,000 people.
It is currently unknown how many of these voters have yet to receive their postal votes, but the number of delays is believed to be in the thousands.
Swinney emphasised the importance of everyone having the ability to vote because of how many Scottish seats are historically “very close contests”.
He said: “If we go back to 2017, in my home constituency of Perth and North Perthshire, Pete Wishart won by 21 votes. Along the road in North East Fife, Stephen Gethins won by two votes.
“Individual votes count, so I’m troubled by what’s happening with the postal ballots in this election with marginal contests in Scotland. I’m worried people will be disenfranchised.”
A spokesperson for the Electoral Commission said: “Local authorities and Royal Mail are working to get these out to postal voters as quickly as possible.
“As is the case at all elections, given the electoral timetable, there is a short window of time for administrators to prepare and dispatch postal votes. It is not uncommon for all postal ballots to not have arrived at this point.”
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