LETTER: Postal voting system is not fit for purpose

This is not a one-party matter. It affects us all and has been allowed to grow to an unacceptable level.

A measure which was welcomed by many people has become abused and is no longer fit for purpose.

I refer, of course, to postal voting.

This excellent measure to allow people to vote when unforeseen circumstances do not allow them to attend on the day set for elections, or when they know they will be too ill to go, has been widened so far that very few reasons are required to apply and get a postal vote.

Instead of then posting the vote back to the council so they could be opened, sorted and counted, they were then in considerable numbers taken by someone to the count and placed in the ballot box.

Election staff then had to spend hours after having been at polling stations since 6 a.m. sorting and checking them. This must be sorted out once and for all.

Postal voting needs to return to its original purpose - an unavoidable inability to get to a polling station on the day, and that should be very few.

DEREK MANN

Knotts Lane, Colne