Six days until the ballot closes and some people still haven’t received their ballot papers
Hmmmm http://t.co/DKqC19NDFL pic.twitter.com/9NZRzrOAZS
— TSE (@TSEofPB) September 3, 2015
Last night the Guardian reported that
Labour members and supporters have begun protesting to the party about their lack of ballot papers with less than a week to go before the leadership election closes.
The party initially promised that 99.9% of its electorate would have received ballot papers by 28 August, but it is now refusing to disclose how many of the 554,000 have been sent out.
However, with just four and a half working days until the ballot closes at midday next Thursday, many have taken to social media to complain to the party about worries that they could be disenfranchised in the contest.
A Labour spokesman said there was no need for people to worry because the process of sending out ballot papers is “still under way, and people can vote online right up to the deadline on 10 September.â€
However, senior party figures, including Jeremy Corbyn, a leadership candidate, and Sadiq Khan, a candidate for London mayor, have urged people to contact the party for their papers to be reissued if they have not received them.
Whilst the Times have said 150,000 ballot papers were sent out late last week. All of this fits in with my supposition yesterday that there’s potential for a late swing against Corbyn given the negative stories for him that have appeared in the last few days. Had the ballot papers gone out earlier/on time then it would have been in Corbyn’s favour.
Meanwhile the New Statesman’s George Eaton tweeted this last night which will give the anyone but Corbyn movement some succour.
Non-voting and worse than expected Unite numbers for Corbyn are making Labour contest closer, source says.
— George Eaton (@georgeeaton) September 3, 2015
This might explain why yesterday with a few bookies and on Betfair Yvette Cooper replaced Andy Burnham as the second favourite to win the contest and why Corbyn’s odds lengthened a bit (but still remains the overwhelming favourite to win.) George Eaton did later tweet he was 90% sure Corbyn was going to win.
As is stands the one guaranteed winner from this leadership contest is the Tory party. Months after their campaign of Tory competence versus Labour chaos the Tories will undoubtedly point out that Labour can’t run a leadership election would you trust them to run a country?