Electoral Commission admits software glitch led to referendum voting cards being sent to EU citizens in the UK

EU citizens arriving at polling stations with erroneously sent cards will be sent away, claims Electoral Commission

The Electoral Commission has blamed a software 'glitch' for sending out voting cards in the UK's upcoming EU referendum to non-British citizens who are not eligible to vote.

In a statement released late yesterday, the Electoral Commission revealed that errors in new electoral roll software - implemented to support the new system of electoral registration - had led to a number of non-eligible EU citizens receiving polling cards for the vote on Thursday 23 June.

"We are aware that a small number of non-eligible EU citizens had mistakenly received poll cards and, in some instances, postal votes for the EU referendum," claimed the statement.

"We are working to confirm the exact number of electors who have been affected by an issue with elections software and will be able to confirm numbers tomorrow [Friday] afternoon.

"The software provider has resolved the issue which means that, if any postal votes have been issued to these electors, they will be cancelled and none of these electors will be shown as eligible on the electoral registers to be used at polling stations on 23 June.

"All of the affected electors will also be written to by their local Electoral Registration Officer with an explanation of what happened and will be told that they will not be able to vote at the referendum."

Today, the Electoral Commission issued a further statement reiterating that EU citizens are not entitled to vote in the UK's EU referendum.

"Anyone who applies to register must state their nationality as part of their application and this information is collected by their local Electoral Registration Officer (ERO). EROs are required to mark on their register who's an EU national so that they do not receive poll cards for elections or referendums that they're not eligible to vote in.

"Anyone who has evidence that someone who's ineligible to vote at the EU referendum has received a poll card should forward this to us at [email protected] and we will follow it up with the relevant ERO," warned the commission.

Under EU law, EU citizens are entitled to vote in local elections where they reside, but not in national elections. There was also some debate over who should be entitled to vote in the EU referendum - with some claiming that EU citizens living in the UK ought to be allowed a vote too - when the law paving the way for it was debated in parliament.

The Electoral Commission has also been forced to intervene over postal voting instructions sent out to voters after claims that some local authorities' instructions appeared to favour a vote for remaining in the EU - when they are supposed to be entirely impartial.

"The Electoral Commission immediately contacted the Counting Officer for Bristol City to ask them to amend the instructions before any further postal voting packs were issued to voters in the area."

Swale, too, admitted that it had used similar pictorial instructions. The Electoral Commission claims that some 61,000 postal voters in Bristol and Swale were affected.

With the vote currently looking close, according to opinion polls, the "Leave" side has been especially jittery over any indication of ballot rigging by the authorities, local or national.