Emergency polls in postal votes fiasco

Emergency polling stations were being set up today as the postal vote crisis deepened.

Local authorities are making urgent arrangements to open special booths after the deadline for returning postal forms ran out. Thousands of electors involved in the postal voting experiment have still not received ballot papers - with two days left before the election.

Today it emerged many of those who have received the forms have filled them in incorrectly. Returning officers say

are not being properly signed or witnessed - meaning they have to be sent back.

It comes as a new poll suggests both Labour and the Tories face their worst election results yet.

A Populus poll indicates the two main parties may win no more than half the total votes cast - losing out to smaller parties, such as the UK Independence Party. labelled the postal voting scheme a "shambles" today - condemning government assurances that deadlines would be met as "worthless".

Around 14 million voters in Britain were asked to vote by post in a pilot scheme designed to boost the electoral turn-out. But the experiment has been dogged by difficulties.

Two emergency polling stations were set up in Bolton today after thousands of ballot papers destined for addresses in the area were not delivered

Election staff said 3,000 postal voting forms had not been delivered to people in the Rumworth ward. The move follows weekend checks on areas where ballot envelopes were not being returned. A further 1,600 voters in four other Bolton wards are having forms hand-delivered.

The latest poll, by Populus in today's Times, suggests Labour and the Tories would together win the backing of just one in six adults, with turn-out as low as a third. It suggests the Liberal Democrats will increase their number of Euro MPs to take third place.