Labour loser to challenge result after poll night fiasco

10 April 2012
WEST END FINAL

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

A defeated London Labour MP is set to become the first to formally challenge his result, after claiming hundreds of his constituents were wrongly prevented from voting.

Andrew Dismore is considering lodging an official petition after losing his Hendon seat by just 106 votes to Tory Matthew Offord.

He claims hundreds of would-be voters were prevented from casting their ballot because of failures by Barnet council to organise the election properly.

Mr Dismore, who has held the seat since 1997, claimed procedural and administrative errors by the council included: people queuing at 9pm being told to leave as they would not get in to vote in time; postal votes arriving late or not being sent, and wrong directions to polling stations being given.

He has written to the Returning Officer and also to the Electoral Commission, which has already launched an inquiry into why tens of thousands of people across the country were unable to vote.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in