East Putney Ward - election result

I have been checking through the paperwork from last week’s elections, and have discovered an error in the count for East Putney Ward which unfortunately meant your own vote was significantly understated in relation to your 2 Liberal Democrat colleagues.

The majority of voters, as you know, vote for three candidates of the same party. The "block vote" for the Liberal Democrats in East Putney on this occasion was 222 votes, and this figure should have been added to the votes cast - 100 in your case - by voters not following -a straight party pattern. As announced on the night, regrettably, your total omitted the "block" votes and included only your "non-block" votes. Your 222 "block" votes were erroneously added to the total of "blanks" - i.e. where voters have voted for fewer than three candidates - and the totals of the other candidates are not affected.

The correct total for your vote is therefore 322. I have asked for the formal Notices of Result and the information on the Council’s website to be revised accordingly, and for the result henceforth to be reported correctly wherever it is published. I will report the correct version to the Electoral Commission, Department of Constitutional Affairs and the Greater London Authority later this week, so no harm has fortunately been done.

Please accept my sincere apologies for this error - I will of course review our count paperwork to minimise the risk of it being made again.