Postal voters fret over Royal Mail service as minister slams 'not acceptable' service after 90 constituencies raise concerns

Royal Mail came under fire last night for failing to deliver postal votes in time for the election.

Postal affairs minister Kevin Hollinrake led the criticism as it emerged voters in more than 90 constituencies have raised concerns about ballot papers not arriving.

The delays have forced Royal Mail to scramble to ensure that ballots are counted in time, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Extra staff have been drafted in to work on election night to make sure ballots are transferred from sorting offices to reach official counts before polls close at 10pm on Thursday.

If they do not reach counts on time then voters are at risk of their ballot not being counted.

The newspaper reported that there were several factors behind the delays.

These included the short turnaround time for councils to process applications, problems with printers and issues with Royal Mail deliveries.

Mr Hollinrake said: 'We urge Royal Mail to do all they can to make sure that postal votes get to the right people at the right time, and time is completely of the essence now.

'There's a resourcing issue. They have recruited extra people and I welcome that but they've got to make sure they've got the right number of people to deliver the mail at busy times like this.

'It's not acceptable it's sat in sorting offices. It needs to be delivered to people's houses. So they need to put more people on to do that.'

A Royal Mail spokesman said: 'We have no backlog of postal votes. Where concerns have been raised, we have investigated and confirmed ballot packs are being delivered as soon as they arrive in our network.'