Hundreds of duplicate postal ballots sent to voters

Nearly 400 Southend voters have received two sets of ballot papers by mistake

Nearly 400 Southend voters have been sent two sets of ballot papers by post for the local elections on 2 May.

Southend-on-Sea City Council chief executive Colin Ansell said it was "an error by one of our suppliers".

The council has measures in place to stop people voting twice.

A total of 381 postal voters have been sent the duplicate ballot papers for the city council and the Essex police, fire and crime commissioner elections.

The council told the BBC the duplicate ballot papers were sent to postal voters on Thursday, 25 April.

About 21,000 papers have been sent out across Southend by the council's external supplier, and the authority said fewer than 1.8% of registered postal voters had been affected by the error.

'No-one will vote twice'

Mr Ansell said the council was contacting the voters affected after taking advice from the Electoral Commission.

"This is advising them to return only one voting pack and inform them that any duplicate packs received will be removed from the process and rejected," he said.

It is a criminal offence to vote twice in the same election. The council said it knew who had received duplicate ballots.

Mr Ansell, who is also the returning officer who oversees elections, said the council had "internal processes and controls regarding postal-vote opening and verification to ensure that only one vote is counted for each election being held".

He added: "Please be assured that no-one in Southend-on-Sea will be able to vote twice. We apologise for any inconvenience or confusion caused."

The council said it would speak to its "external supplier" to establish how this happened.